BY JING ZHAO
Imagine -- a stranger takes picture of you in the street and is able to figure out your name, date of birth, and Social Security number. Is that thought terrifying? KPHO reports -- facial recognition software might make it a reality.
"A group of researchers at Carnegie Mellon actually started looking at what could be done with facial recognition … Whatever public records are out there about you, whatever social media is out there, whatever you've ever done on the Internet, with a few clicks, I can start to really gather a lot of information about you."
CNN Money reports, more and more people are getting used to identifying themselves on social networking sites, which provide more than enough data.
“Facebook now has more than 750 million accounts. Those users love sharing photos, with more than 2.5 billion photos uploaded to Facebook each month last year, according to the social network. Facebook is becoming a de facto database of unregulated Real IDs.”
By combining facial recognition technology with Facebook, researchers say it can be easy for someone to figure out Social Security numbers. Forbes reports:
“Social security numbers are predictable if you know a person’s hometown and date of birth. This study essentially adds a facial recognition component to that study.”
Criticized for violating users’ privacy, Facebook is up against legal action in Germany over its facial recognition software. WTTG-FOX reports:
“The feature automatically recognizes people in the photo and adds their name to it. You can opt out but the facial recognition program is enabled by default. Facebook says they are now looking into it but they said the program doesn’t violate any European privacy laws.”
However, there may be an upside for the technology. MSNBC reports:
“It’s easy to think up positive applications for such technologies -- the ability to find dangerous criminals or terrorists in crowds, for example. Even online daters might trade privacy for the reassurance that prospective dates aren’t lying about their background.
