Creative, commercial photographers.

Facial recognition software searches public photography

August 30, 2010

Uploading pictures of your friends to social networking sites such as Facebook can be a time-consuming process. Help is at hand from computer software company Face.com, which has designed software to recognise untagged faces and pool the images together.

The software has been programmed to scan the positions of facial features, and according to the developers it is accurate 9 out of 10 times. Miraculously it will then search the Internet for other images of the same person and in tests it found photos and interactive web video images, which were previously unseen by some of the people in them.

Gill Hirsch, chief executive officer of Face.com, said:

“You can basically search for people in any photo. You could search for family members on Flickr, in newspapers, or on YouTube.”

The software creators added that 5,000 developers had already begun using the program.

Although such software has been used by the UK Border Agency and other Governmental organisations or within social networking platforms before, it could now also be used to pick up photography from all over the internet, which will include personal photos as well as commercial photography.

Those in support of the technology think it could be key in helping families unlock their past or trace friends and relatives lost in humanitarian disasters like the recent floods throughout Pakistan.

Although the Information Commissioner’s Office has said there are no legal restrictions on using of facial recognition software to search through images and web video Simon Davies, of Privacy International, said:

“The regulators have been hugely behind the curve on protecting people’s privacy on the Internet. We need to push for much tighter international rules.”

Fortunately for the private client, the professional commercial photographer has a clear policy on confidentiality and photo sharing and photos will only be put online with their permission.