Hunting for the Face

NewScientistTech writes about how Face-hunting software will scour web for targets:

'A search engine that uses sophisticated facial recognition to allow users to identify and find people in online images will launch next month. But civil liberties groups say the biometric-style tool could compromise the privacy of anyone who has their picture online.

Search engine Polar Rose reconstructs the 3D shape of a person's face and then combines that with characteristics of their features to generate a unique "face print". This can then be used to search other photos for a match.'

Of course, such software flags important privacy concerns:

'Although this sounds like a great idea, I would not like to be searchable in this way, or so easily tracked without my consent... is similar to the kind of biometric database some governments wish to use'

Via Smartmobs