If the thought of people searching for your name on Google doesn’t bother you enough, they can now search your face online instead. The new face recognition tool, PimEyes, looks like something out of a science fiction movie.
PimEyes is basically Google, but for facial images. You can upload a face to the website and it will search the web and return results in seconds. And the technology behind the platform is surprisingly impressive.
The service costs $ 29.99 per month, so there is a paid wall in front of the website. But other than that, anyone can use PimEyes to search for photos of themselves or others who may exist online.
Image: The New York Times
Several reporters from The New York Times recently tested PimEyes to see how capable the website is. And the results were understandably surprising.
The website has been able to return images from previous years that match the uploaded images. PimEyes has managed to bring back images of users wearing sunglasses, hats and even face masks. One reporter even found an image of himself in the middle of a crowd during Coachella in 2011.
Why does a website like PimEyes even exist?
Image: The New York Times
Such a service obviously raises some ethical issues. According to the owner of the website, Georgi Gobronidze, users should only search for images of themselves or people who have agreed to the search.
But there is nothing to stop someone from searching another person’s face. Gobronidze told The Times that he relies on users who act “ethically” on PimEyes. And we all know that ethics is in the background on the Internet.
And what’s worse, it’s a feature that allows you to exclude images you find about yourself from public results on the website.
That’s a pretty decent feature, isn’t it? However, this feature is only available to platform subscribers who pay for PROtect plans. And these plans can cost from $ 89.99 to $ 299.99 per month.
This sounds a lot like blackmail to me. You can essentially hide your images from PimEyes search results, but only if you open your wallet even more than the original subscription price.
Although PimEyes demonstrates some impressive technology, it raises the age-old problem posed by most science fiction films: “We’ve spent so much time trying to figure out if we can, we’ve never stopped asking if we should.” ”
Do you have any thoughts on the matter? Let us know below in the comments or post the discussion on our Twitter or Facebook.
Editors’ recommendations:
Contributing writer with a passion for games and technology. They will probably be beaten by some kids in the Rocket League.
Add Comment