Facebook to warn parents if they accidentally share pictures of their children with the world

The potential tool is just one of the applications for the site’s advanced image-recognition tools, one of its executives said

Andrew Griffin
Friday 13 November 2015 16:28 GMT
Comments
Content creators have criticised Facebook over copyright infringement before
Content creators have criticised Facebook over copyright infringement before (Content creators have criticised Facebook over copyright infringement before)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Facebook is developing tools that will allow it to automatically spot when parents accidentally share pictures of their children and warn them.

The tool is just one of a range of features that could make use of the company’s sophisticated image recognition technology. Other uses could include making Facebook photos visible to visually-impaired people, and it is already being used to spot specific people in pictures.

Facebook’s vice president of engineering detailed how the technology could eventually look through photos, spot pictures of children, not that parents usually only share such photos with their close friends and warn them that a picture was about to be posted publically.

“If I were to upload a photo of my kids playing at the park and I accidentally had it shared with the public, this system could say: ‘Hey wait a minute, this is a photo of your kids, normally you post this to just your family members, are you sure you want to do this?’

“I think [it’s] a nice intelligent way for us to help you manage all of the data and the information around you, and that could be just helping you process this stuff and getting it right the first time.”

Comedian Dara O’Briain, who was interviewing Mr Parikh, also pointed out that it could save people from uploading embarrassing photographs of things that they might not want online. If the algorithm depicted that there were a sensitive body part on show in the photo, for instance, it could require people to be sure that they want to post.

Mr Parikh also said that the same system can be used to help those who are blind and visually-impaired. He demonstrated a tool that can be used to describe a picture in precise detail, after it had been looked over by an algorithm.

A person could ask what their family member was doing in a photo, for instance. Since the algorithm can pick out details with great precision, it can spot that a person is brushing their teeth just from a blurry picture of a toothbrush.

None of those features are available yet, and as with many of Facebook’s unreleased innovations it may never make it to the finished product. But Facebook already uses some of the artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies in its products, including tools that identify who is in a photo as well as Facebook M, its partially artificial intelligence-powered virtual assistant.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in