if you upload a photo into Google's
reverse image search it'll find websites
where that picture has appeared or
provide visually similar images that
have the same coloring and Composition
the leading search engine in Russia
called Yandex has reverse image search
too but it doesn't work the same way
it's not looking for visually similar
images it's looking for similar faces
the same face the difference between
these search engines is that Google
hasn't switched on facial recognition
and Yandex has on Google you can enter a
name and look for a face but on Yandex
you can enter a face and look for a name
and that distinction represents a
potentially enormous shift in our
offline lives where we usually decide
who we introduce ourselves to now that
computer scientists have created tools
that can turn faces into nametags it's
worth reflecting on how we got here and
what we stand to lose
[Music]
a computer's facial recognition system
has broadly the same components as your
own facial recognition system you see
someone with your eyes your mind
processes the features of their face and
recalls their identity from your memory
now imagine if you could have eyes and
lots of places and could download and
store memories from other people then
you have something more like the
automated version of facial recognition
which has only come together in the past
five years or so
its eyes our digital cameras
revolutionary machines that turn light
into data it's a state-of-the-art
digital model which records images on
memory chips instead of photographic
film digital imagery arose in the early
2000s which coincided with the arrival
of the social internet so right when we
were able to take an unlimited number of
pictures Facebook Flickr YouTube and
other sites told us that our images had
a home online a hundred million photos
are being tagged every day on Facebook
professional photography also went up on
websites news articles and photo
libraries and Google's web crawlers
gathered them into image search and then
the computer vision researchers went to
work the millions of digital photos
posted to the internet like the Facebook
pictures where we tagged our friends or
the Google image results of celebrities
they were used to build the mind of
facial recognition systems that mind is
made up of a series of algorithms they
locate faces in an image map facial
features to correct forehead rotation
and then take over a hundred
measurements that define that individual
face those measurements are usually
described as the distance between the
eyes the length of the nose the width of
the mouth but the truth is nobody knows
exactly what's being measured that's
determined by a deep learning algorithm
looking for correlations in raw pixel
data
to train that algorithm engineers give
it sets of triplets an anchor photo
another photo of the same person and a
photo of a different person the
algorithm is tasked with deciding what
to measure so that the statistical
difference between the two matching
photos is as small as possible while the
distance between the non matching photos
is as large as possible these algorithms
are refined through millions of examples
but they still don't perform equally
well on all types of people or all types
of photos that hasn't stopped them from
being packaged and distributed as ready
to use software but whoever uses that
software won't be able to identify you
until you're in their database of known
faces that's the memory of the system
and it's separate from the training
images in the case of the iPhone space
ID it's a database of one you volunteer
to store your face on your device in
exchange for easily unlocking your phone
companies like Facebook and Google also
keep databases of their users but it's
governments that typically have access
to the largest databases of names and
faces so facial recognition
significantly expands the power of the
state they collected these images for
other reasons and now they're
repurposing them for facial recognition
without telling us or obtaining our
consent which is why several US cities
have banned government use of facial
recognition in the private sector retail
stores banks and stadiums can create or
buy watch lists of known shoplifters
valued customers or other persons of
interest so they're notified if one of
those people shows up and then there's
another source of labeled photos those
are the ones we've been labeling
ourselves by setting up profiles on
social media networks it's typically
against the terms of use to program BOTS
that can download faces and names from
sites like LinkedIn Twitter or Facebook
but it's doable
and what's at stake is something that
most of us take for granted our ability
to move through public spaces
anonymously so we typically think of
public and private as being opposites
but is there such thing as having
privacy when we're in public eye I would
like to think so
Evan Sellinger is a professor of
philosophy who argues that facial
recognition is a threat to obscurity
which is the idea that
personal information is safer when it's
hard to obtain or understand so we have
natural sort of limitations in what we
can perceive and what we can hear even
the human mind has you know sort of
basic limits and how much information it
can store so one of the things that
technologies do is they reduce the
transaction costs of being able to find
information being able to store
information being able to share
information and being able to correctly
interpret information and so the facial
recognition is probably the most
obscurity of Visser rating technology
ever invented we don't have to imagine
how this could play out it's already
happening with photos from the Russian
social media network VK Eric Toller a
journalist who covers Europe for Belling
cat showed me how it works with a random
video of Russian soccer fans picking
fights in Poland there's about ten or so
of these soccer hooligans in this video
and for like every single one of them
find their their profiles on weekend
here's the first result this guy so you
click the photo here it'll take you
directly to the photos like here is he's
wearing I think he's wearing the same
shirt yeah I can write the same charity
but this is him too so this is probably
like his buddy who uploaded a photo yeah
so this is probably this guy's profile
here's his buddy right here yes oh here
he is during a baptism probably and the
photo you uploaded is not like
particularly clear or high-resolution oh
no not at all right it's just like it's
probably 200 by 100 so it is kind of it
does feel weird when you do this you
have access to more information but you
should is what it feels like but also we
only public over like 1000 sure of and
if possibly double you mean maybe don't
include the names of people how you feel
about this technology probably depends
on how much you sympathize with the
person being identified belen cat has
used these tools to identify people
linked to the attack on flight mh17 in
eastern ukraine they've also been used
to Doc's police officers accused of
brutality anti-corruption activist
protesting against Vladimir Putin random
strangers as part of an art
and sex workers porn performers and
others who have posted anonymous photos
online the way that we share our images
and our names on social media LinkedIn
Twitter Instagram it seems to suggest
that we don't want to be obscure we're
not really looking to be anonymous are
we allowed to want to share and connect
with other people online and still be
able to expect not to be recognized when
we're offline in our regular lives I
would say absolutely if we ever create a
society where that's not a reasonable
expectation a lot of the things that are
fundamental to being a human being are
really going to be compromised having
any individuality requires experimenting
in life and experimenting requires the
protections of some obscurity but also
intimacy requires obscurity right if you
want to be able to share different parts
of your life with different people I
think most of us do right we don't want
to come into work and behave the same
way we do with our friends we don't want
to treat our partners in the same way we
do acquaintances and the concern when
you lose too much obscurity is that
these domains bleed into one another and
create what's called context collapse
and it doesn't mean that one is more
real or one is more authentic leading a
rich life requires us to be able to
express ourselves in these diverse ways
the photos we took to share with friends
or document history or simply get a
government ID have been used to build
and operate a technology that strips
away the protections that obscurity has
always provided us it's nothing less
than a massive bait and switch one that
could change the meaning of the human
face forever
hi I'm Joss hey I'm Samantha and we are
excited to announce the launch of a new
project called open sourced from recode
by box for the next year we're going to
be writing articles and making videos
about the hitting consequences of
technology to help you make informed
decisions and we would love for you to
contribute to our reporting by joining
the open-source reporting network we
want to know what questions you have
about the technology that you use
day what do you want to know about how
your data is being used please go to
voxcom slash open-sourced
network to submit your questions and
ideas can't wait to hear what you're
curious about