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IBM took almost a million photos on Flickr, used them to understand how to train facial recognition training programs, and shared them with outside researchers. But as NBC points out, the people photographed on Flickr did not consent to their photos being used to develop facial recognition systems – and could easily not have them, knowing that these systems could eventually be used for monitor and recognize them.
Although photographers were able to obtain permission to take pictures of these people, some told NBC that the people photographed did not know that their images had been annotated with facial recognition notes and could be used to drive algorithms. .
"None of the people I photographed had the slightest idea that their images were used that way," a photographer told NBC.
The photos have not been compiled originally by IBM. They are part of a larger collection of 99.2 million photos, known as YFCC100M, which the former Flickr owner, Yahoo, had originally created to conduct research. All photos have been shared under a Creative Commons license, which generally indicates that they may be used freely, with certain limitations.
However, the fact that they may potentially be used to form facial recognition systems for ethnicity, for example, may not be a use that even Creative Commons' most permissive licenses were intended. This is not a purely theoretical example: IBM had already created a video analytics product that used body cameras to understand breeds. IBM denied it would "participate in work involving racial profiling," she said. The edge.
It should also be noted that IBM's initial intentions were perhaps based on preventing the AI from being detrimental to certain groups. However, when she announced the collection in January, the company explained that she also needed such a large data set to be able to train for equity. as precision.
In any case, it is difficult for an average person to check if their photos have been included and to request their deletion, because IBM keeps the confidential dataset of anyone who does not conduct academic research or business. NBC has obtained the dataset from a different source and has created a tool in its article that allows photographers to check if their Flickr user names have been included in the IBM collection. This does not necessarily help the people photographed, if they are not interested in participating.
IBM said The edge in a statement, "We take people's privacy very seriously and take the utmost care to comply with the principles of privacy protection." It was noted that only verified researchers could access the privacy of individuals. set of data and include only publicly available images. He added: "Individuals can choose not to participate in this dataset."
IBM is just one of many companies that explore the field of facial recognition and it's not the only one that uses photos of ordinary people without expressly asking for their consent. Facebook, for example, has photos of 800,000 faces that can be downloaded by other researchers.
Update from March 12th at 7:41 pm ET: This article has been updated with a statement from IBM.
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