Facebook Police - Facial Recog dilemma

Facebook Police – Someone is watching...

I just wanted a pic of Horatio with the CSI logo, but this was too funny to pass up!
Condolences to MJ...

I love CSI. Especially how they always have a “system” to find things, like AFIS (Advanced Fingerprint Identification System), that they always use to compare the prints they lift off whatever. They always use a system to catch the bad guy right?

 

Mark my words, someday, in the fairly near future, CSI will solve a case by using FBFRS (Face Book Facial Recognition System).

 

See, recently I attended the masquerade ball in Kuwait, it was a blast, lots of fun, had a wonderful time. and as with any occasion, I had a camera present, and a presence of mind to take as many pictures as I could. So I did. I was worried about how long it would take to tag all my friends on facebook, but no worries. A small price to pay.

Now, I seem to recall how I would be viewing some page on facebook, and on the right side margin, a picture would have a face selected and ask you to identify the person. I dispelled the act as being another one of those “Green Card Lottery” gags, until I paid closer attention once and found out that the picture they were using was my own!

So, its 8am and im uploading the pictures onto facebook, what happens? It just says select the friend that appears in these photos, and out of the 70 pictures I had uploaded, each friend and face that facebook recongised, had already been highlighted, and you merely had to type in their name to tag them.

Anyone else worried? Think about it, we all take pictures, and we all (well, mostly) have facebook, and we also have that vanity of always wanting to upload pictures. Right? It has given birth to the infamous “Facebook Pose”, where you would take a picture and say “this is for facebook”!

And the latest in “privacy” and “security”, I am currently on assignment in Saudi Arabia, and much like everyone else, communicate with all my friends via facebook status updates! So I have been signing in from here for quite some time.

Just 10 minutes ago, I was denied access to my account, because I was signing in from a location that “was no t familiar”, bless them for their security, but that means that if someone decides to hack my account from Kuwait, they will not be stopped by this control.

Anyways, it asked me for some information, and then, lovingly, presented me with an option, either answer my secret question (which I do not even recall at this point in time), or be shown pictures of my friends and select who they are from a list. An MCQ exam of sorts, do you believe it? Here I am fresh off my CMA exam, and facebook decides to give me MCQs! No matter, I said I know pretty much all the friends I took pictures of, but it wasn’t showing me pictures from my profile, it was pictures from their profiles! Imagine that! So here I am looking at personal (to an extent, afterall, it is on facebook) pictures of my friends, and having to select their names on the side, and guess what? The list is made up of people on my list!

Henceforth, if the INTERPOL want to search for someone, and they have a picture of them, facebook might offer them the means to search their database, or even be court ordered to. Bottom line is, we will all post pictures on facebook, and everyone will have some people in the background. So imagine that, anyone can be caught anywhere so long as they have pictures on facebook.

Let that thought simmer whilst you log on to your facebook account :P

And also, check out this link: http://www.psfk.com/2010/08/the-uses-and-perils-of-facial-recognition.html
 
http://www.face.com/