Worried about facial recognition technology? Here’s a simple-to-use de-identification solution

Yesterday, at the Netexplo Innovation Forum 2019 at UNESCO’s Paris HQ, I took part in the presentation of one of the companies I had scored highly in the selection process of 10 outstanding digital projects competing for the event’s Grand Prix, Israel’s D-ID, and I had the opportunity to meet one of its co-founders, Gil Perry. The company, set up about two years ago, works on the de-identification of photographs: its algorithms generate imperceptible modifications in images that prevent the faces shown in them from being recognized by facial recognition algorithms, which means they can be used in databases without risk of subsequent identification. As the company explains (link to video), this is important, because while we can easily change our passwords, it is very difficult to change our face.

Photography, to all intents and purposes, shows us as we are, but small alterations, for example, the distance between the eyes or other features, can trick biometric characteristics captured by facial recognition algorithms, meaning that the photo does not match our identity. The human eye would still recognize us, but the biometric parameters are erroneous, and therefore if it is included in an identification database, would not allow us to be identified.