Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Recent advances in computer networks and facial recognition software bring about some interesting possibilities for knowing that a person was in a place at a time doing an activity. Governments might want to know this information. Private companies, however, would more likely implement this for profit.

This post brings about some interesting possibilities with facial recognition and all the information that is lying about on the Internet.

Here is a scenario or use case:

1. I photograph a group of people standing around in a public place.
2. Photograph gives me date, time, and location.
3. Software separates the individual faces in the photo giving me N photos.
4. Facial recognition software matches these N faces to faces shown on social networking sites, news sites, and all other sites on the Internet.
5. All those other sites on the Internet provide me information on the faces that were recognized.

I can now match N people to places, times, and events given my one little photograph.

Let’s multiply this one little photograph by a few hundred million little photographs taken by every one’s cell phone (connected to the net so the photo can be pulled up into the system without the photographers permission or knowledge) and all those security cameras and web cams and traffic cams connected to the Internet.

I can now match millions of people to places, times, and events. Hmmm. That might be interesting information.

There are some technical challenges:

1. Bandwidth of moving the photographs about the Internet
2. Processing power to constantly scan all faces on the Internet and recognize them

These are tough, but will be surmounted in the next couple of years if they haven’t been already.

Who will do this?

An obvious answer is that a government will do this. Governments, especially those that don’t like a lot of personal freedom, want to know who is where and doing what. Governments have practically unlimited financial resources.

My feeling, however, is that government bureaucracies don’t have the management competence and the individual incentive to make this work. There will be ten years of study before one computer is purchased.

My answer is that a big, international company will do this. Google is an obvious answer. Facebook is another obvious answer. Perhaps someone, with a lot of financial backing, will start a new company and do this.

Why would a company do this?

This information is worth a lot of money. If I know that a person was at a bar in a particular neighborhood on a particular night, I can send them Facebook notes, Tweets, emails, texts, voice messages, etc. advertising all sorts of things for that day of the week in that neighborhood. I can try to sell them all sorts of goods and services specific to that time and place and avocation.

Will this happen?

I think so. It is a natural. It is an extension of what we do with text. After we do it with still photographs of faces, we will do it with audio and video as well.