Each time you upload a photo or video to a social media platform, its facial recognition systems learn a little more about you. These algorithms ingest data about who you are, your location and people you know — and they’re constantly improving. As concerns over privacy and data security on social networks grow, University of Toronto Engineering researchers led by Professor Parham Aarabi and graduate student Avishek Bose have created an algorithm to dynamically disrupt facial recognition systems. “Personal privacy is a real issue as facial recognition becomes better and better,” says Aarabi. “This is one way in which beneficial anti-facial-recognition systems can combat that ability.”
Their solution leverages a deep learning technique called adversarial training, which pits two artificial intelligence algorithms against each other. Aarabi and Bose designed a set of two neural networks: the first working to identify faces, and the second working to disrupt the facial recognition task of the first. The two are constantly battling and learning from each other, setting up an ongoing AI arms race. The result is an Instagram-like filter that can be applied to photos to protect privacy. Their algorithm alters very specific pixels in the image, making changes that are almost imperceptible to the human eye.
In addition to disabling facial recognition, the new technology also disrupts image-based search, feature identification, emotion and ethnicity estimation, and all other face-based attributes that could be extracted automatically.
Read more here (University of Toronto Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. “AI researchers design ‘privacy filter’ for your photos: New algorithm protects users’ privacy by dynamically disrupting facial recognition tools designed to identify faces in photos.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 31 May 2018.)
