These Ex-Spies Are Harvesting Facebook Photos For A Massive Facial Recognition Database (Fb)

From Forbes:

When Mark Zuckerberg appeared earlier the House Energy too Commerce Committee final calendar week inward the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica revelations, he tried to depict the divergence betwixt "surveillance too what nosotros do." "The divergence is extremely clear," a nervous-looking Zuckerberg said. "On Facebook, y'all induce got command over your information... the information nosotros collect y'all tin sack select to induce got us non collect."

But non a unmarried fellow member of the committee pushed the billionaire CEO about surveillance companies who exploit the information on Facebook for profit. Forbes has uncovered i instance that mightiness stupor them: over the final 5 years a secretive surveillance fellowship founded past times a old Israeli word officeholder has been quietly building a massive facial recognition database consisting of faces acquired from the giant social network, YouTube too countless other websites. Privacy activists are suitably alarmed.

That database forms the nub of a facial recognition service called Face-Int, forthwith owned by Israeli vendor Verint later it snapped upwards the product's creator, little-known surveillance fellowship Terrogence, inward 2017. Both Verint too Terrogence induce got long been vendors for the U.S. of A. of America government, providing bleeding-edge spy tech to the NSA, the U.S. Navy too countless other word too safety agencies.

As described on the Terrogence website, the database consists of facial profiles of thousands of suspects "harvested from such online sources every bit YouTube, Facebook too opened upwards too shut forums all over the globe." Those faces were extracted from every bit many every bit 35,000 videos too photos of terrorist preparation camps, motivational clips too terror attacks. That same marketing page was online inward 2013, according to network archive the Wayback Machine, indicating the production is at to the lowest degree 5 years old. The age of the production also suggests far to a greater extent than than 35,000 videos too photos induce got been raided past times the Face-Int engineering past times now, though Terrogence co-founder too query atomic number 82 Shai Arbel declined to comment for this article.

Raising the stakes of facial recognition
Though Terrogence is primarily focused on helping word agencies too constabulary enforcement struggle terrorism online, LinkedIn profiles of electrical flow too old employees betoken it's besides involved inward other, to a greater extent than political endeavours. One ex-staffer, inward describing her purpose every bit a Terrogence analyst, said she'd "conducted populace perception management operations on behalf of unusual too domestic governmental clients," too used "open origin word practices too social media engineering scientific discipline methods to investigate political too social groups." She was non reachable at the fourth dimension of publication.

And forthwith concerns induce got been raised over only how Terrogence has grabbed all those faces from Facebook too other online sources....MUCH MORE