Google saw…
The photo was taken at Heaton park, Manchester. The foreground shows a man and his dog. The man is wearing a blue jacket and a bib that says ‘Running my 300th parkrun TODAY’. His dog is wearing a bright yellow jacket. In the background, there’s a welcome banner for Geoff, a parkrun setup with several people interacting with the volunteers. Autumn leaves are scattered on the ground, indicating the season.
The man appears to be Caucasian, middle-aged, and of average build, likely leading an active lifestyle given the context of a parkrun. He seems happy and proud to be completing his 300th parkrun. His dog looks alert and excited. Other individuals in the background appear to be volunteers and participants in the parkrun, exhibiting a mix of emotions – excitement, concentration, and general engagement. The picture seems to have been taken on a mobile phone, likely sometime in the morning of Saturday, November 9th, 2024.
The subtle confetti-like details on the welcome banner add to the celebratory atmosphere.The specific design on the dog’s jacket shows high-visibility reflective strips, indicating an awareness of safety. The overall scene suggests a community event with a strong emphasis on physical activity and camaraderie. The lighting suggests it was likely taken outdoors on a somewhat overcast day.
So, I uploaded a photo of myself in a tram cabin, where I appear to be driving the tram through the depot (except that I’m not—it was taken during the local transport company’s open day, the tram is stationary, and I’m a bit of a transport geek, with sadly no experience in driving a tram).
While it described the picture rather accurately and caught a couple of interesting details, it completely missed the city, attributing it to be in a city where there are no trams at all, in an entirely different country. It even ignored EXIF data, which correctly places the picture right in the middle of a local tram depot here in Zagreb, Croatia. This was quite weird and a major fail.
It also described me as looking ‘very professional and calm’ as a tram driver, even though I was just wearing a T-shirt, as the open day was in summer. But it’s certainly good to know that AI thinks I could convincingly pull it off if I ever wanted to change careers.
Now consider that there is a company, Clearview AI, that has 30 billion faces in their database collected from social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Venmo that has an app that, they say, identifies people with something like 98.6 percent accuracy.
It is currently only available to law enforcement.
Clearview’s data processing of those photos has been judged to be against the law in many European countries. Just because information is public, it doesn’t mean that companies can download it and process it for their own purposes.
We have been there before some time ago and it may go wrong (I will not participate in a legal discussion because I am no lawyer).
The short answer: yes, Clearview has to protect personal data of EU citizens, too. The question is if and when the EU will enforce it.
The longer answer:
Art. 50 GDPR: In relation to third countries and international organisations, the Commission and supervisory authorities shall take appropriate steps to: (…) provide international mutual assistance in the enforcement of legislation for the protection of personal data, including through notification, complaint referral, investigative assistance and information exchange, subject to appropriate safeguards for the protection of personal data and other fundamental rights and freedoms (…).
There are more and more international treaties between states to help each other in protecting their citizens. This of course goes both ways.
Again, I will not go down this rabbit hole, it may lead to… yeah…
So far, they have concentrated on bigger and more known players like Meta. Would it be successful in the long run? I don’t think so. If they stop one company, the next one will do it. I think that we ourselves have to do our part to protect our data (photos), too. What is out there on the internet is out there…
