Facial recognition technology has been causing quite a stir for a while now. While some are paranoid about it, others find it to be useful, life changing even. Well, now there’s a new website to be either paranoid or thrilled about. PimEyes allows you to upload just one photo of a person, and it will analyze the internet to see where else this person’s photos have been published.
PimEyes is Polish facial recognition website, it’s simple to use, and it’s free for everyone. You can upload an image from your computer or paste its URL, similar to Google image search. You can also take a photo with your webcam if you’re searching for a photo of yourself across the web. I tested it out just for fun, and I used this photo of Nikola Đuričko, one of my favorite Serbian actors. I had hundreds of results in return, and they were very accurate.
While PimEyes is free, there are also premium versions, available at €9.19, €13.99, and €18.99 per month at the time of writing this. Premium subscribers get different perks, such as alerts and dedicated personal support. Alerts allow you to get notified when new images of a person are uploaded, and you can save up to 25 of people to get alerted about.
According to OneZero, PimEyes is similar to Clearview AI, facial recognition software used by the police all over the world. However, it’s not as powerful and it doesn’t scrape social media sites, according to this source. PimEyes makers claim that they don’t save any images that you search.
Now, software like this can be useful in some cases. Apparently, they’re useful for the police and law enforcement agencies, but what about when they’re available to the public? They can be a useful tool for finding lost family, like this guy did. But they can also be a handy tool for stalkers and creeps of all sorts.
Personally, software like this creeps me out a bit. On the one hand, I’m aware that we all voluntarily share our everyday lives on social media. But on the other hand, it freaks me out to think just how simple it is for anyone to find you, anywhere on the web. What do you think of websites like this? Are you freaked out, or you don’t really care about it?
[via Boing Boing, OneZero]
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