Facebook’s New “Fun & Creative” Filter: a Frighteningly Powerful Facial Recognition Tool
by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.
TheNewAmerican.com
Saturday, 19 November 2016
Facebook recently purchased a facial recognition software company that promises to “bring more fun effects to photos and videos” posted on the social media behemoth. The origins of the technology — named “FacioMetrics” — is much more sinister, however, and is likely to be used in much less lighthearted ways.
In its announcement of the acquisition, Facebook highlights FacioMetrics’ ability to “allow people to express themselves in fun and creative ways” and to “build even more engaging sharing experiences on Facebook.” There isn’t, however, any mention of how, and more importantly why, FacioMetrics was created.
To answer that question, we must follow a few steps that leads from a technology developed by the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Robotics to the “fun and creative” technology now part of Facebook, a company that boasts more than 1.8 billion users.
A press release issued by Carnegie Mellon University on December 16, 2015 describes the story of a recently developed “image analysis software.” The story sheds new light on just how powerful this so-called photo filter really is and just how invasive its possible applications are. Here’s the background on FacioMetrics, back when it was called IntraFace:
Automated facial analysis is at the heart of a host of potential applications, from monitoring the emotional state of patients to detecting whether a public speaker is losing an audience’s attention. Fernando De la Torre, associate research professor in the Robotics Institute, said releasing the latest version of the software, called IntraFace, will help expand those applications by giving researchers access to its state-of-the-art capabilities.
“IntraFace provides a breakthrough in facial feature tracking that simplifies the problem of facial image analysis, working rapidly, accurately and with such efficiency that it can run on most smartphones,” De la Torre said. “Now it’s time to develop new applications for this technology. We have a few of our own, but we believe there are lots of people who may have even better ideas once they get their hands on it.”
The Rest…HERE
