by Pete Warden, Technology Review
Image analysis algorithms used to be rare handcrafted Fabergé eggs, but now they’re cheap off-the-shelf components made on a production line. These advances have huge implications for our privacy, since we now document our lives with so many pictures. Facebook alone already has over 200 billion photos. So far this hasn’t had a massive impact on privacy because there’s been no good way to search and analyze those pictures, but advances in image recognition are changing all that. It’s now possible to not only reliably spot you in photos, but also tell what you’re doing. Creating an algorithm to spot common objects, whether they’re bikes or bongs, is now so easy. Imagine all your photos being processed into a data profile for advertisers or law enforcement, showing how much you party, who you’re with, and which demonstrations you attended.
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/529396/software-that-can-see-will-change-privacy-forever/
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