Facial recognition app lets users find strangers on Facebook by taking their picture
This creepy facial recognition app lets users find
strangers on Facebook by taking their picture
The app can match photos of people on the street with
their Facebook profile CREDIT: FACEZAM
By Cara McGoogan 14 MARCH 2017 • 10:13AM
A facial recognition app that can identify strangers from
a photograph has been created by a British entrepreneur.
Facezam can identify people by matching a photo of them
with their Facebook profile. All users have to do is take a picture of someone
on the street and run it through the app, which will tell them who it thinks
the person in the photo is.
"Facezam could be the end of our anonymous
societies," said Jack Kenyon, founder of Facezam. "Users will be able
to identify anyone within a matter of seconds, which means privacy will no
longer exist in public society."
Facezam scans billions of Facebook profile images a
second, which it accesses through a database for developers, until it finds a
match. It claims to be able to link most photos with a profile on the social
network within 10 seconds.
The app, which will launch on iOS on March 21, has been
tested on more than 10,000 images to date with a 70 per cent accuracy.
But its launch could be delayed by Facebook, which said
Facezam violates its privacy policies.
"This activity violates our terms and we’re reaching
out to the developer to ensure they bring their app into compliance," said
Facebook.
Facebook reviews apps that use its data before they go
live to check they adhere to its policies. Apps that collect users' data or use
automated technology to scan Facebook are forbidden from launching without
permission from the social network.
Facezam refuted that the app violates Facebook's terms.
"We've looked into this, and are confident the app won't be violating
Facebook's terms," said Kenyon.
The technology could help reduce crime by making everyone
identifiable, Kenyon said, adding that the public implications of the app
couldn't be predicted. "There may be a mix of positives and
negatives," he said.
'The end of anonymous society'
Unfortunately there is no way for the privacy conscious
to remove themselves from the app, which can use its identification software on
anyone with a Facebook profile.
Its accuracy does however drop to 55 per cent when a
person's face is obscured in either the photo of them or in their Facebook
profile image. Factors that affect its success include obscuring hair,
sunglasses, a large hat or odd angle, Kenyon said.
The inspiration for Facezam comes from Shazam, the music
lookup service that can tell users the name and artist of a song after hearing
just a few bars. Facezam said its legal consultants weren't concerned that the
name infringed on Shazam's copyright.
Facial recognition software is already used by internet
giants such as Facebook and Google to group photos together and suggest who
should be tagged in them. It is also used in some law enforcement databases and
by companies such as Tesco to map customer demographics.
But Facezam's launch marks the first time that the
general public will be able to use Facebook data in this way. Facebook blocked
the now defunct NameTag, a Google Glass recognition app, from using its data in
a similar way. Google then banned the technology altogether from being applied
to Glass.
A similar tool called Find Face lets users look up people
online using a photo that it matches with images on VKontakte, a Russian social
network. British augmented reality company Blippar recently launched a similar
search tool but it can only scan faces on its database. These include public
figures such as politicians and musicians, with users able to add their own
faces if they want to.
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