This Facial Recognition Site Is Creeping Everyone Out

pcmag.com:

A facial recognition tool called PimEyes has recently gone from unknown to infamous.

PimEyes makes it easy to find pictures of people that are strewn across the internet. That isn't necessarily surprising—reverse image searches have been a thing for years—but it turns out PimEyes is astoundingly good at identifying people with naught but a single photograph.

The New York Times reports(Opens in a new window) that it found years-old pictures even if the sample image featured people wearing sunglasses or face masks. Other factors such as different facial hair, new hair styles, or the passage of time didn't seem to make all that much of a difference either.

For some a tool like PimEyes could be little more than a novelty. But for others it's a nightmare.

CNN reports(Opens in a new window) that Cher Scarlett, a software engineer who led the #AppleToo movement before departing the company, is in the latter camp. The report then explains in detail how "PimEyes brought back a real-life nightmare that occurred nearly two decades ago."

Scarlett herself explains in a blog post(Opens in a new window) that PimEyes charges her $300 per month to hide all images of her—some of which reportedly feature tags like "abuse," "torture," and "choke"—from its search results. (The images remain available on their original websites, however.)

PimEyes has responded to the resulting scrutiny with a blog post(Opens in a new window) in which it says:

PimEyes just provides a tool, and the user is obliged to use the tool with responsibility. Everyone can buy a hammer, and everyone can either craft with this tool, or kill. It is impossible to check if certain individuals use every tool in their possession in accordance with the law and it is unwise to