Are Photos on Flickr Private?

Photos on Flickr may not be as private as users hope, according to consumers whose photos were allegedly used in a massive public database.

What is Flickr?

Flickr
is an online photo management and sharing application on which consumers can post their photos. According to Flickr’s website, the application aims to “to get photos and video into and out of the system in as many ways as we can: from the web, from mobile devices, from the users’ home computers and from whatever software they are using to manage their content.”

Are Photos on Flickr Private?

Unfortunately, photos posted on Flickr may not be private as consumers have hoped. Countless users have posting pictures of themselves, their family, and even their children on the website. According to the New York Times, these images reportedly found their way onto facial recognition database MegaFace.

The issue started in 2014 after Yahoo unveiled its quest to advance facial recognition software. 100 million photos and videos were reportedly used in “the largest public multimedia collection that has even been released.” Yahoo reportedly got the pictures of Flickr, its subsidiary.

The researchers reportedly attempted to build a safeguard into their database, making it so that the photos themselves were not distributed – only the links to the photos. Ideally, this would allow users to delete their images or make them private so the public could not access them through the database.

Unfortunately, this safeguard was reportedly flawed. The New York Times allegedly discovered a “security vulnerability” which allows access to Flickr photos even if a user has made them private.

The issue was reportedly compounded when researchers, including a group at the University of Washington, downloaded the images and redistributed them. The Washington researchers reportedly used the pictures from the database to create MegaFace in 2015. The database was reportedly funded by Samsung, Google’s Faculty Research Award, and the National Space Foundation/Intel.

MegaFace is now the most widely recognized facial recognition database in the world, reportedly containing more than 4 million photos of around 672,000 people. The global academic and research community reportedly uses the database for facial recognition training.

Although MegaFace and Yahoo aimed to advance facial recognition software and increase technological applications, the sharing of Flickr photos was reportedly done without consent. Users reportedly feel like they were not sufficiently warned that their photos would be shared and that their privacy was violated on a global scale.

The Times shares the story of Dominique P., an Illinois woman who allegedly uploaded photos on Flickr showing her children’s faces in 2005. 14 years later, those images have reportedly been found in MegaFace.

“It’s gross and uncomfortable,” Dominique’s daughter, currently attending college in Oregon, told the New York Times. “I wish they would have asked me first if I wanted to be part of it. I think artificial intelligence is cool and I want it to be smarter, but generally you ask people to participate in research. I learned that in high school biology.”

Join a Free Flickr Facial Recognition Class Action Lawsuit Investigation

If you had a Flickr account and you uploaded pictures onto that account, those images may have been given to MegaFace and used for facial recognition purposes without your permission, and you may qualify to join this Flickr facial recognition class action lawsuit investigation.

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This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.