Facebook developed an internal facial recognition app that allowed users to scan peoples' faces and identify them. Images obtained by Motherboard now show what that app looked like.
Business Insider first reported the existence of Facebook's facial recognition app in November last year. The app, made between 2015 and 2016, was available to Facebook employees and was designed to recognize employees and their Facebook friends who had facial recognition settings enabled, Facebook told Motherboard. Facebook uses facial recognition for spotting users in photos uploaded by themselves or others.
[...] When pointed at an individual it could recognize and link an account to, the app presented a pop-up over the person's face saying "You are friends." When the app could not identify someone, it displayed the message "Unable to recognize :(," according to another screenshot obtained by Motherboard.
A Facebook spokesperson provided the same statement the company did in response to Business Insider's original piece.
"As a way to learn about new technologies, our teams regularly build apps to use internally. The app described here was only available to Facebook employees, and could only recognize employees and their friends who had face recognition enabled," the spokesperson wrote in an email.
Source: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/k7ekmv/facebook-facial-recognition-app
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Facial recognition technology is still misidentifying people at an alarming rate – even as it's being used by police departments to make arrests. In fact, Paul Bischoff, consumer privacy expert with Comparitech, found that Amazon's face recognition platform incorrectly misidentified more than 100 photos of US and UK lawmakers as criminals.
Rekognition, Amazon's cloud-based facial recognition platform that was first launched in 2016, has been sold and used by a number of United States government agencies, including ICE and Orlando, Florida police, as well as private entities. In comparing photos of a total of 1,959 US and UK lawmakers to subjects in an arrest database, Bischoff found that Rekognition misidentified at average of 32 members of Congress. That's four more than a similar experiment conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) – two years ago. Bischoff also found that the platform was racially biased, misidentifying non-white people at a higher rate than white people.
These findings have disturbing real-life implications. Last week, the ACLU shed light on Detroit citizen Robert Julian-Borchak Williams, who was arrested after a facial recognition system falsely matched his photo with security footage of a shoplifter.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 23 2020, @07:24AM (2 children)
relegated to a hospital laboratory somewhere, collecting bodily fluids from octogenarians.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @09:43AM
Future: Facebook Collects DNA Samples From All Users
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @05:05PM
Zuck's brains should just be blown out. That thing is gleefully creating a monstrous surveillance engine which collections information even on people who don't have accounts on it.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday March 23 2020, @07:45AM (6 children)
We had a slogan against smoking which went: "he who smokes damages you too, tell him to stop".
s/smoke/uses social media/
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @09:15AM (5 children)
Asking a smoker not to smoke used to be fighting words, usually between a husky guy and a wimp.
Usually resulted in the smoker lighting up one after another to punish the whiner.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @10:10AM (4 children)
I've always found it hilarious that when I exercise that same 'freedom to smoke' to light my pipe, most cigarette smokers suddenly feel an urge to try and make me stop.
Goose/gander.
Sadly I can't do that anymore, my allergy keeps getting worse.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 23 2020, @11:56AM (3 children)
You can light your pipe, or a cigar, next to me, anytime. Rarely have I smelled either that I didn't like, and only very rarely have I smelled one that I positively disliked. A good Cuban cigar is like a whiff of Paradise. I'll admit that I've smelled a few cigars that could be confused with burning dogshit - but damned near no one smokes those.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @01:04PM (2 children)
Good on you.
Roughly 80% of smokers had very strong objections whereas most non-smokers preferred my pipe over the cigarette smoke.
An excellent hypocrisy test if you ask me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @06:44PM (1 child)
Not sure how that is a hypocrisy test. You're interpreting it as they prefer or don't mind your pipe smoke whereas they could be choosing between the lesser of two evils. Did they prefer your pipe smoke over no smoke, or just over the cigarette smoke? Also, if you were showing them consideration, they might have been showing it back to you. Let's say that you want to engage in an activity what I find unpleasant but perhaps tolerable. If you politely ask me beforehand if you could do the activity, and am much more inclined to be agreeable, even though I might find it unpleasant.
(Score: 2) by Nesh on Tuesday March 24 2020, @09:41AM
it's not a test for non-smokers. I'd assume non-smokers prefer no smoke at all.
It's surely a test for smokers.
Many tout their 'freedom to smoke' right until I started smoking something they don't like.
And the pipe wasn't particularly obnoxious: non-smokers preferred it over the cigarettes.
"If you politely ask me beforehand if you could do the activity, and am much more inclined to be agreeable, even though I might find it unpleasant."
Like smokers generally do? What percentage would you say asks before lighting up in public?
Many even smoke where it is not allowed but heaven forbid you make a remark on that.
I never smoke where it's forbidden.
(Score: 1) by jman on Tuesday March 24 2020, @04:53PM