A Face Search Engine Anyone Can Use Is Alarmingly Accurate

nytimes.com

7 pointsechen6 comments

PimEyes doesn’t scrape social media, just the rest of public photos. Unless you are plastered all around the web, you probably don’t have to worry about it returning your photo. It appears to mostly just be reverse image search so a recent photo may others that are relatively current, but it doesn’t seem to find older pictures when your face may be thinner or with/without facial hair, etc. It returns a lot of NSFW false positives btw. Of course the NYT employees who have pictures all over the web will think it’s accurate.

I'm glad to hear that, but…

1. Do you have a reference?

2. How does Pimeyes assign scraped photos to people, if it doesn't use social media? (Or doesn't it even try to provide a name?)

2 It looks for photos that look like the photo you give them. It doesn't know who the photo is of.

I see, thanks.

1. On their site under the “MORE THAN A REVERSE IMAGE SEARCH” heading:

> PimEyes uses a reverse image search mechanism and enhances it by face recognition technology to allow you to find your face on the Internet (but only the open web, excluding social media and video platforms).

Didn't someone just get a huge fine for something similar to this?

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