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Riya and false hysteria over privacy concerns

Posted by The Technocrat | Filed under Geeky

I’ve posted about Riya before. I like Riya. I think it will show to have great potential, as some of the comments on my previous posting get into. In reading Wired’s story, “Face It: Privacy Is Endangered“, I’m appalled at what normally is a very good publication. Not only does the author’s own sources say that facial recognition is highly unreliable, but the author uses privacy concerns to turn this article into some sensationalist story about how Riya-like services will be used for stalking, profiling, etc. Two pages of this stuff.

Here’s the deal: Riya is still in Alpha, it’s not even released yet. It’s not a finished product. And yes, I’m sure more companies will come out with comparable services. But while the author tries to make two opposing points on facial-recognition privacy concerns, there is a simple answer to both:

Facial recognition isn’t accurate enough to connect your face to your private information on the web.
OK, fine, then the security expert is telling you to not worry about it. Why is your personal information on the web anyways? I would look into how it got there to begin with before you worry about how it could be potentially used.

Facial recognition services like Riya will be used to help people gain access to your info
This is solved easily. Since this side of the article assumes facial recognition to be accurate enough to identify you on a semi-reliable basis, then you have nothing to worry about. Open an account with the offending service, and specify that whenever it sees a picture of you, to not publish your information. You could even upload a ton of non-public mug shots to train the service on what you look like. Since, as you claim, the facial recognition service is so good at finding you, then it will be just as good at hiding your information.

Seriously, this section of tech just became available. The security concern is obvious, and I’m sure there will be methods to protect the users, if they so desire. Do I know this for sure? no. But it sure is a lot more helpful to the proponent of what could be a great technology if you propose new features to develop, rather than try to slam the entire thing in an effort to get people to read your article out of fear. Doing the latter is like realizing that a meteor could crash into your house tonight, but advertising “You could die in your sleep tonight, more at 11…”

Comments (0) | December 7th, 2005