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So now a practical goal of social media is to not post enough pictures that allow training an accurate representation. Anyone know that if Google/Apple/other p

So now a practical goal of social media is to not post enough pictures that allow training an accurate representation. Anyone know that if Google/Apple/other private photo storers train on my private photos if they can sell the model to other facial recognition without my specific identity? I suppose a model could accurately identify a photo of prepend without actually saying that who prepend is. So that would allow the selling of data as “de-identified.”

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
>Anyone know that if Google/Apple/other private photo storers train on my private photos if they can sell the model to other facial recognition without my specific identity? The better question is probable "who sells facial recognition identities/services and also has users uploading pictures?" Even if Google, FB, whoever, aren't having the photo's department handing their stuff over to the facial recognition department, they're only a minor shift of priorities or management personalities away from that happening.
- prepend 6y ago
  I’m not a machine learning programmer, but trained models don’t really have identifying information right? So they wouldn’t even need to hand over any photos or PII, only a trained model that now better identifies specific individuals. What’s really interesting is that any healthcare images can be used without requiring patient permission since training models can be used on a completely HIPAA de-identified image (stripping out any burned in characters, etc).
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - ArnoVW 6y ago
    Arguably, if the model can identify me from a picture, then the model IS "indentifying information" (in the most literal sense). In France, and I believe now in the whole of Europe (GRPD) anyone can ask to remove or correct "identifying information". I wonder if this angle has already been used by someone.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  Both in house isn't really necessary - get facial recognition and feed it the others and you have the model you want. Wouldn't government ID photos already contain the missing link of data for facial recognition without any speculative dot connecting? The DMVs have been /actually/ selling your data for years (as opposed to using it to power their advertising model - a pretty crucial difference as illustrated by this). Of course that also depends on what they are stupid or callous enough to include. Webcrawling can be a fertile source - find one profile with real name and photo and you have a mapping. A grey area that was more an embarassment or cost of doing business than a company killer for Clearview.
- fencepost 6y ago
  There have been minor obstacles to that. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/illinois-facebook-users-to-get-more-than-300-each-in-privacy-settlement/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/illinois-faceboo...
PeterisP 6y ago
"not post enough pictures that allow training an accurate representation" - well then you just have to post no pictures, and even that won't be sufficient as you're likely to end up in photos that others post, like the original article example of Andres Rafael Viola who was identified because he just happened to be in the corner of the background on someone else's photo. A few years ago I had a project that among other things needed to detect which politician is in a particular photo, and an accurate representation needed something like 5-6 photos from different angles back then; more pics helped, of course, but you could get quite good results with just a few images even back then. I presume that we're not far from tech where 1 or 2 at most would be sufficient, so if any photos at all exist on social media (e.g. a buddy has taken a group photo and marked you in it from their contact list) then you are or will be linked to your photos. And IIRC that recognition is quite stable as you age if properly trained, so if there's a ten year old photo floating around somewhere, then that part of your privacy is already gone.
ArnoVW 6y ago
I do believe that ship has sailed. Even if you are "opsec-conscious", your relatives most probably are not. Example in case, today is my birthday, and my mother in-law has sent me a video collage of pictures with me in them, automatically generated by Apple. Because of course she has entered my birthday into her phone, and has tagged my picture a couple of times. Funny tidbit, one of the pictures was not me, but my 4-year old son (also blonde, wearing my sunglasses).
- ThePowerOfFuet 6y ago
  >automatically generated by Apple Actually it was automatically generated by their iOS device, entirely on-device.
why_Mr_Anderson 6y ago
Social media are not the only source of good training data, have you seen how many security cameras are in London, for example? Hint: a very very very large number. Or traffic cams pretty much anywhere?
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  Social media are not the only source of good training data, have you seen how many security cameras are in London, for example? To be training data it also has to be labelled - security camera footage alone is not a good source of training data, unless it can be correlated e.g. with swipes of an ID card through a door or something, to provide the label.
goatinaboat 6y ago
Anyone know that if Google/Apple/other private photo storers train on my private photos This is one of the failings of GDPR - if I request a company remove my personal data it should also be required to destroy and re-train any models from scratch that used that data, without mine. I know this would be very expensive but that's the point, it's the only way to get companies to take it seriously.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

>Anyone know that if Google/Apple/other private photo storers train on my private photos if they can sell the model to other facial recognition without my specific identity? The better question is probable "who sells facial recognition identities/services and also has users uploading pictures?" Even if Google, FB, whoever, aren't having the photo's department handing their stuff over to the facial recognition department, they're only a minor shift of priorities or management personalities away from that happening.

prepend 6y ago
I’m not a machine learning programmer, but trained models don’t really have identifying information right? So they wouldn’t even need to hand over any photos or PII, only a trained model that now better identifies specific individuals. What’s really interesting is that any healthcare images can be used without requiring patient permission since training models can be used on a completely HIPAA de-identified image (stripping out any burned in characters, etc).
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ArnoVW 6y ago
  Arguably, if the model can identify me from a picture, then the model IS "indentifying information" (in the most literal sense). In France, and I believe now in the whole of Europe (GRPD) anyone can ask to remove or correct "identifying information". I wonder if this angle has already been used by someone.
Nasrudith 6y ago
Both in house isn't really necessary - get facial recognition and feed it the others and you have the model you want. Wouldn't government ID photos already contain the missing link of data for facial recognition without any speculative dot connecting? The DMVs have been /actually/ selling your data for years (as opposed to using it to power their advertising model - a pretty crucial difference as illustrated by this). Of course that also depends on what they are stupid or callous enough to include. Webcrawling can be a fertile source - find one profile with real name and photo and you have a mapping. A grey area that was more an embarassment or cost of doing business than a company killer for Clearview.
fencepost 6y ago
There have been minor obstacles to that. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/illinois-facebook-users-to-get-more-than-300-each-in-privacy-settlement/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/illinois-faceboo...

PeterisP 6y ago

"not post enough pictures that allow training an accurate representation" - well then you just have to post no pictures, and even that won't be sufficient as you're likely to end up in photos that others post, like the original article example of Andres Rafael Viola who was identified because he just happened to be in the corner of the background on someone else's photo. A few years ago I had a project that among other things needed to detect which politician is in a particular photo, and an accurate representation needed something like 5-6 photos from different angles back then; more pics helped, of course, but you could get quite good results with just a few images even back then. I presume that we're not far from tech where 1 or 2 at most would be sufficient, so if any photos at all exist on social media (e.g. a buddy has taken a group photo and marked you in it from their contact list) then you are or will be linked to your photos. And IIRC that recognition is quite stable as you age if properly trained, so if there's a ten year old photo floating around somewhere, then that part of your privacy is already gone.

ArnoVW 6y ago

I do believe that ship has sailed. Even if you are "opsec-conscious", your relatives most probably are not. Example in case, today is my birthday, and my mother in-law has sent me a video collage of pictures with me in them, automatically generated by Apple. Because of course she has entered my birthday into her phone, and has tagged my picture a couple of times. Funny tidbit, one of the pictures was not me, but my 4-year old son (also blonde, wearing my sunglasses).

ThePowerOfFuet 6y ago
>automatically generated by Apple Actually it was automatically generated by their iOS device, entirely on-device.

why_Mr_Anderson 6y ago

Social media are not the only source of good training data, have you seen how many security cameras are in London, for example? Hint: a very very very large number. Or traffic cams pretty much anywhere?

goatinaboat 6y ago
Social media are not the only source of good training data, have you seen how many security cameras are in London, for example? To be training data it also has to be labelled - security camera footage alone is not a good source of training data, unless it can be correlated e.g. with swipes of an ID card through a door or something, to provide the label.

goatinaboat 6y ago

Anyone know that if Google/Apple/other private photo storers train on my private photos This is one of the failings of GDPR - if I request a company remove my personal data it should also be required to destroy and re-train any models from scratch that used that data, without mine. I know this would be very expensive but that's the point, it's the only way to get companies to take it seriously.