Google Sued Under Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act

Post by vorpalhex » Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 3:57 PM UTC

coleca wrote: post #10

rahuldottech wrote: post #7

If a friend clicks a photo of me and uploads it to Google Photos, IMO, it's not okay for Google to use my face to train models without explicit permission from me. Unfortunately, as is often the case with technology, laws have not kept up with the lastest developments, and likely will not in my country for several more decades. Welp.

Just to be pedantic in the spirit of HN. Google isn't training models w/your face from your photo library. The way face recognition works is that Google would collect a dataset somehow and label that for the various feature and train a model for face recognition. Usually this is done with a carefully curated dataset that would be sure to include various ages, genders, ethnicities, lighting conditions, angles, and cam…

Post by shadowgovt » Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 3:57 PM UTC

voxic11 wrote: post #20

shadowgovt wrote: post #12

This lawsuit seems dead on arrival. From the article (emphasis my own): """ The suit alleges that Google is violating BIPA because it is “actively collecting, storing, and using—without providing notice, obtaining informed written consent or publishing data retention policies—the biometrics of millions of unwitting individuals whose faces appear in photographs uploaded to Google Photos in Illinois """ From the text o…

I have to point out that his exact argument has been made and rejected by the courts in multiple cases already. > Shutterfly maintains that by excluding data derived from photographs from the definition of “biometric information,” the Illinois legislature intended to exclude from BIPA’s purview all biometric data obtained from photographs... As Shutterfly acknowledges, if biometric identifiers do not include informat…

Post by advisedwang » Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 4:44 PM UTC

rygxqpbsngav wrote: post #4

lmkg wrote: post #2

To save y'all a click: The alleged biometrics in question are the use of facial-recognition software on photos uploaded to Google Photos (without informed consent from the user).

I remember google popping up a consent to store the AI models for the facial recognition locally on my phone (not in the cloud)! If this is the case, the lawyers are wasting their time, I guess.

Post by rahuldottech » Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #22

rahuldottech wrote: post #7

If a friend clicks a photo of me and uploads it to Google Photos, IMO, it's not okay for Google to use my face to train models without explicit permission from me. Unfortunately, as is often the case with technology, laws have not kept up with the lastest developments, and likely will not in my country for several more decades. Welp.

Let's assume for a moment that the photo was taken in public. Normally, you don't have much expectation of privacy in public spaces. Generally, a photographer is free to take photos in public and use those photos as they see fit. Why is Google's use of your photo different than the photographer's use of the photo?

Post by coleca » Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 5:17 PM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #21

coleca wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be pedantic in the spirit of HN. Google isn't training models w/your face from your photo library. The way face recognition works is that Google would collect a dataset somehow and label that for the various feature and train a model for face recognition. Usually this is done with a carefully curated dataset that would be sure to include various ages, genders, ethnicities, lighting conditions, angles, and cam…

Google absolutely allows you to confirm it's tags and uses that for retraining, which means yes, my facial profile is collected, stored and used for model training (unless you disable it in preferences). You can't do "celebrity" recognition from a generalized data set.