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IBM, and Some Other Companies Did Not Inform People When Using Their Photos From Flickr To Train Facial Recognition Systems (nbcnews.com)
IBM and some other firms are using at least a million of images they have gleaned from Flickr to help train a facial recognition system. Although the photos in question were shared under a Creative Commons license, many users say they never imagined their images would be used in this way. Furthermore, the people shown in the images didn't consent to anything. From a report: "This is the dirty little secret of AI training sets. Researchers often just grab whatever images are available in the wild," said NYU School of Law professor Jason Schultz. The latest company to enter this territory was IBM, which in January released a collection of nearly a million photos that were taken from the photo hosting site Flickr and coded to describe the subjects' appearance. IBM promoted the collection to researchers as a progressive step toward reducing bias in facial recognition. But some of the photographers whose images were included in IBM's dataset were surprised and disconcerted when NBC News told them that their photographs had been annotated with details including facial geometry and skin tone and may be used to develop facial recognition algorithms. (NBC News obtained IBM's dataset from a source after the company declined to share it, saying it could be used only by academic or corporate research groups.)
"None of the people I photographed had any idea their images were being used in this way," said Greg Peverill-Conti, a Boston-based public relations executive who has more than 700 photos in IBM's collection, known as a "training dataset." "It seems a little sketchy that IBM can use these pictures without saying anything to anybody," he said. John Smith, who oversees AI research at IBM, said that the company was committed to "protecting the privacy of individuals" and "will work with anyone who requests a URL to be removed from the dataset." Despite IBM's assurances that Flickr users can opt out of the database, NBC News discovered that it's almost impossible to get photos removed. IBM requires photographers to email links to photos they want removed, but the company has not publicly shared the list of Flickr users and photos included in the dataset, so there is no easy way of finding out whose photos are included. IBM did not respond to questions about this process.
"None of the people I photographed had any idea their images were being used in this way," said Greg Peverill-Conti, a Boston-based public relations executive who has more than 700 photos in IBM's collection, known as a "training dataset." "It seems a little sketchy that IBM can use these pictures without saying anything to anybody," he said. John Smith, who oversees AI research at IBM, said that the company was committed to "protecting the privacy of individuals" and "will work with anyone who requests a URL to be removed from the dataset." Despite IBM's assurances that Flickr users can opt out of the database, NBC News discovered that it's almost impossible to get photos removed. IBM requires photographers to email links to photos they want removed, but the company has not publicly shared the list of Flickr users and photos included in the dataset, so there is no easy way of finding out whose photos are included. IBM did not respond to questions about this process.
Your photos are public. What the hell do you expect?
Someone tell these people how search engines work.
People place images on the public internet, available to world+dog, and then express surprise and dismay that world+dog has access to the images? What's next, shock and dismay upon learning that Zuckerberg knows more about them than the NSA does?
It's pictures available for public conniption ("conniption" was an autocorrect error too funny to correct).
Consumption is just what model training is doing; they are not republishing the pictures in any way, just using them to train models - which do not contain any element of images they train from.
If you put your image in public, how can you be aghast someone has viewed it?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Exactly! What the fuck? "I shared something and someone viewed it, it's not supposed to happen!" YES, IT IS, DERP.
It's the same story as yesterday. Idiots who have no idea what they're doing are outraged again. They'll go nuts again tomorrow.
Although the photos in question were shared under a Creative Commons license, many users say they never imagined their images would be used in this way
Just because you lacked the creativity to consider what was possible with your data doesn't mean there is anything improper has happened when they do use it in such a way.
Also, if you have given away your data thinking that somehow corporations would respect you then you don't really understand what drives corporations.
The reality is that if it's profitable then a corporation will do it. It doesn't matter if it's morally repugnant, illegal or downright evil because if it's possible to make a profit then there will be a corporation that will do it. Note that being illegal typically means they will be fined which they consider a business expense.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Let me guess, the whole quote should he been something like:
"None of the people I photographed had any idea their images were being used in this way, but it's all because I decided to put it on the internet with a licence that allows anyone to do anything with it, without explaining to them what I was going to do."
"The photos were shared but not with this use in mind." - Too bad! "Granted it is splitting hairs" - Sure is! "but it does bother some people" - Who DID IT TO THEMSELVES, sure. Who cares about them?
" Imagine if you were one of the people in the photo's background." - I don't pose for group pictures. I value my privacy to the extent that I do stuff specifically to keep it, like not sharing or appearing in photos with insta-bombers.
"Those people don't get much say when you share the photo." - Damn straight, welcome to the world. This is just a fact of living in a society where taking pictures and sharing them is generally not illegal. People are upset? Aww.
Poor little things have to try harder if they want to stay out of photos on the internet. So sorry, but the internet isn't going to forget what you tell it just because you didn't expect it to remember, or think of the outcomes ahead of time.
“It seems a little sketchy that IBM can use these pictures without saying anything to anybody,” he said.
It seems a little sketchy than this photographer didn't explain to the subjects that he was going to post their image online with a licence that allows anyone to do anything with it for any reason.
Almost all responses here are along the lines of "what did you expect". But it's not that simple.
If I go up to a window in your house and photograph the inside, you don't say "well, I have no problem with that, the windows are transparent after all".
Saying "it's technically possible, so of course someone did it" makes you no better than databrokers like Cambridge Analytica who create psychological profiles based on your Facebook likes and then sell them to, well, anyone really.
Is it technically possible? Yes. Was it something the average user could have anticipated when they pressed the "I agree" button? No.
This is about norms and values. Privacy is a form of "contextual integrity". We have expectation of how much we will get for different situations. People have similar expectations online.