When tech companies created the facial recognition systems that are rapidly remaking government surveillance and chipping away at personal privacy, they may have received help from an unexpected source: your face. Companies, universities and government labs have used millions of images collected from a hodgepodge of online sources to develop the technology. Now, researchers have built an online tool, Exposing.AI, that lets people search many of these image collections for their old photos.
The tool, which matches images from the Flickr online photo-sharing service, offers a window onto the vast amounts of data needed to build a wide variety of A.I technologies, from facial recognition to online “chatbots.”

Article Link – https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/31/technology/facial-recognition-photo-tool.html

Discussion Questions:

1. Identify three key takeaways from the article. What did you find most interesting?
2. Do you think this is a beneficial service? Would you use it?
3. What are some of the possible security risks associated with your images being shared online?

Source: Cade Metz and Kashmir Hill, “https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/31/technology/facial-recognition-photo-tool.html”, www.nytimes.com , February 1, 2021.