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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDisturbing! These Ex-Spies Are Harvesting Facebook Photos For A Massive Facial Recognition Database
These Ex-Spies Are Harvesting Facebook Photos For A Massive Facial Recognition Database
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/04/16/huge-facebook-facial-recognition-database-built-by-ex-israeli-spies/#e92020c7f185
When Mark Zuckerberg appeared before the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week in the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica revelations, he tried to describe the difference between "surveillance and what we do." "The difference is extremely clear," a nervous-looking Zuckerberg said. "On Facebook, you have control over your information... the information we collect you can choose to have us not collect."
But not a single member of the committee pushed the billionaire CEO about surveillance companies who exploit the data on Facebook for profit. Forbes has uncovered one case that might shock them: over the last five years a secretive surveillance company founded by a former Israeli intelligence officer has been quietly building a massive facial recognition database consisting of faces acquired from the giant social network, YouTube and countless other websites. Privacy activists are suitably alarmed.
That database forms the core of a facial recognition service called Face-Int, now owned by Israeli vendor Verint after it snapped up the product's creator, little-known surveillance company Terrogence, in 2017. Both Verint and Terrogence have long been vendors for the U.S. government, providing bleeding-edge spy tech to the NSA, the U.S. Navy and countless other intelligence and security agencies.
As described on the Terrogence website, the database consists of facial profiles of thousands of suspects "harvested from such online sources as YouTube, Facebook and open and closed forums all over the globe." Those faces were extracted from as many as 35,000 videos and photos of terrorist training camps, motivational clips and terror attacks. That same marketing page was online in 2013, according to internet archive the Wayback Machine, indicating the product is at least five years old. The age of the product also suggests far more than 35,000 videos and photos have been raided by the Face-Int technology by now, though Terrogence co-founder and research lead Shai Arbel declined to comment for this article.
But not a single member of the committee pushed the billionaire CEO about surveillance companies who exploit the data on Facebook for profit. Forbes has uncovered one case that might shock them: over the last five years a secretive surveillance company founded by a former Israeli intelligence officer has been quietly building a massive facial recognition database consisting of faces acquired from the giant social network, YouTube and countless other websites. Privacy activists are suitably alarmed.
That database forms the core of a facial recognition service called Face-Int, now owned by Israeli vendor Verint after it snapped up the product's creator, little-known surveillance company Terrogence, in 2017. Both Verint and Terrogence have long been vendors for the U.S. government, providing bleeding-edge spy tech to the NSA, the U.S. Navy and countless other intelligence and security agencies.
As described on the Terrogence website, the database consists of facial profiles of thousands of suspects "harvested from such online sources as YouTube, Facebook and open and closed forums all over the globe." Those faces were extracted from as many as 35,000 videos and photos of terrorist training camps, motivational clips and terror attacks. That same marketing page was online in 2013, according to internet archive the Wayback Machine, indicating the product is at least five years old. The age of the product also suggests far more than 35,000 videos and photos have been raided by the Face-Int technology by now, though Terrogence co-founder and research lead Shai Arbel declined to comment for this article.
This is actually why my sister refuses to attend some social events where coworkers constantly post photos (without permission) of everyone attending to social media. While one could argue that this is overly paranoid, the truth is that social media has cost people jobs, even when only in attendence where others were "misbehaving"
Seth Abamson's take on this (majorly concerned):
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Disturbing! These Ex-Spies Are Harvesting Facebook Photos For A Massive Facial Recognition Database (Original Post)
hlthe2b
Dec 2018
OP
And still people use Facebook and put money in the pocket of republican Zuckerberg.
Squinch
Dec 2018
#1
Squinch
(50,773 posts)1. And still people use Facebook and put money in the pocket of republican Zuckerberg.
I DON'T use Facebook, but even still, I have no control over my face being used in others' photos and therefore in this creepy database.
hlthe2b
(101,715 posts)2. Me either, never have, never will.
hlthe2b
(101,715 posts)3. I have to wonder if those using FB & other social media are too numbed to realize the ramifications
of this...I surely hope not....
Mr. Quackers
(443 posts)4. Internets are too vicious a place
to put too much personal information.
hlthe2b
(101,715 posts)5. kick for others who may need this information to guide their social media use