Facial recognition search engine PimEyes has banned searches involving minors. The move came as a response to growing concerns over the potential misuse of the platform for searching images of underage individuals.
Giorgi Gobronidze, the CEO of Tbilisi, Georgio-based PimEyes, announced the decision. The platform also banned 200 accounts for “inappropriate searches of children’s faces”, reported The New York Times.
The platform has also implemented various technical measures to prevent searches involving minors, affirming its stand on the “no harm policy”.
PimEyes is a subscription-based service utilising facial recognition technology to identify and retrieve online photos associated with a person. With a vast database comprising nearly three billion faces, the platform sees around 118,000 daily searches.
The platform offers three plans — Open Plus, PROtect and Advanced — at a monthly subscription cost of $14.99, $59.99 and $299.99, respectively.
“Parents have used PimEyes to find photos of their children on the internet that they had not known,” wrote Kashmir Hill, reporting for The New York Times.

In its infancy, the platform was a mechanism to let individuals find their own pictures anywhere on the internet, thereby protecting their privacy and safety. However, there were no technical safeguards in place to see if individuals were using the service to search their photos or if a stranger was using it.
Modern facial recognition technology has been in public view for over five decades. Combined with AI, many companies are joining the facial search bandwagon.
A 2020 investigation by The New York Times exposed a platform known as Clearview AI, used primarily by law enforcement agencies. Government agencies operate in the shadowy world of facial recognition with little or no oversight.
As we are currently witnessing, using facial recognition technology has not always been beneficial to the population in general. The stakeholders should come together and devise appropriate policies balancing the safety of the citizens and protecting their privacy.
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