A Response from the CEO of Face.com – And My Questions for Him
The CEO of Face.com—the company behind the facial recognition software that I discussed in yesterday’s blog post—responded to my post with a comment. Here’s what he had to say:
So I took Gil up on his offer and reached out to him. Fortunately, he was nice enough to offer answers to some questions that I have. I thought I’d share the questions with you while I wait for his response.
- In as much detail as possible, can you describe what your new facial recognition software will be able to do?
- Why is facial recognition software necessary? I can see the many benefits in cases of crimes, disasters, human aid, but for the general consumer what is the benefit?
- How will the new software be different than the technology that you developed for Facebook’s Photo Finder?
- Based on The Times of India article that our blog post was based off of, it sounded like the your technology would be implemented on a large scale, one that would “give a name to every photograph on the Internet”. So my question is: Once the software is publicly released, what options will people have, if any, to opt-out of their identities being matched to their online pictures?
- Is there an option for parents to “opt their child’s photos” out?
- Can the software be modified just for use on adult faces?
- Do you have an idea of when the software will be released? And if so, are there any big social-networking contenders out there who are looking at implementing your technology into their user-generated image database?
- Will the default-setting of your technology be provided to vendors where permission to use must be obtained by end user?
- Tell me how your product abides by children’s online privacy protection laws?
- How does your company make money?
- Who stores the identity data? Where does the data reside?
- How are you making sure that the vendors you work with abide by children’s online privacy protection laws?
Expect an update on this post as soon as I receive Gil’s answers!
Category: Privacy
Mary Kay is a nationally-recognized Internet safety expert and the founder of 
