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Recognition software will scan Facebook for incriminating markings

September 10, 2012 1 comment

dailymailPolice may soon be able to catch criminals by the ink they are sporting.

Computer scientists are developing a new program that will be able to identify suspects by their tattoos and match them to photos in police databases or on social media.

Automatic identification through recognition of body art could provide a much needed breakthrough in detective work, often thwarted by grainy footage from surveillance videos that make it difficult to see a criminal’s face to use facial recognition.

Tattoo artist at workTattoo recognition: Computer scientists are developing a computer program that will be able to identify suspects by their tattoos and match them to photos in police databases (file photo)

‘Those photos are often so bad that face recognition wouldn’t come even close’ to finding a match in a database, Terrance Boult, a computer science professor at the University of Colorado, explained to Live Science.

To rectify this problem, Boult worked with a team of researchers to develop a computer program that Read more…

Categories: Social Networking Tags: ,

‘Deleted’ Facebook photos still viewable THREE YEARS later

February 7, 2012 Comments off

dailymail

Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO of Facebook: Site users claim that 'deleted' photographs persist on the site for up to three years, accessible by anyone with a link to them

Deleted Facebook photos don’t disappear but can still be accessed by anyone with a link to the images themselves.

The company admits that its systems ‘do not always delete images in a reasonable period of time.’

The news is liable to be a shock to users who’ve relied on the delete function to remove embarrassing photos from office parties or nights out.

Deleted images vanish from ‘normal’ views of the site – ie if you log in to Facebook and look on somebody’s photo page, they won’t be visible – but remain visible to anyone with a direct URL link to the picture.

That means that if, for instance, a picture has been circulated by email, the image will still be there for anyone who clicks the link.

Facebook has repeatedly promised to ‘fix’ problems with the systems it uses to remove photographs, after users pointed out that images tended to persist after deletion.

Not all deleted pictures are affected, but a significant percentage.

Technology site Ars Technica reports that a picture of a naked toddler supposedly ‘removed’ in 2008 was still visible as of February 2012.

Site readers reported campaigns of harassment using Read more…

Categories: Privacy, Social Networking Tags: , , ,