General questions
Q. What is this research about?

We studied the consequences and implications of the convergence of three technologies: face recognition, cloud computing, and online social networks. Specifically, we investigated whether the combination of publicly available Web 2.0 data and off-the-shelf face recognition software may allow large-scale, automated, end-user individual re-identification. We identified strangers online (across different online services: Experiment 1), offline (in the physical world: Experiment 2), and then inferred additional, sensitive information about them, combining face recognition and data mining, thus blending together online and offline data (Experiment 3). Finally, we developed a mobile phone application to demonstrate the ability to recognize and then predict someone's sensitive personal data directly from their face in real time.

Q. What were the results of Experiment 1?
Experiment 1 was about online-to-online re-identification. We took unidentified profile photos from a popular dating site (where people use pseudonyms to protect privacy), compared them - using face recognition - to identified photos from social networking sites (namely, we used what of a Facebook profile can be publicly accessed via a search engine; we did not even log on to the network itself), and ended up re-identifying a statistically significant proportion of members of the dating site.

Q. What were the results of Experiment 2?
Experiment 2 was about offline-to-online re-identification. It was conceptually similar to Experiment 1, but we focused on re-identifying students on the campus of a North American college. We took images of them with a webcam and then compared those shots to images from Facebook profiles. Using this approach, we re-identified about one third of the subjects in the experiment.

Q. What were the results of Experiment 3, and how do they relate to "Augmented Reality"?
We use the term augmented reality in a slightly extended sense, to refer to the merging of online and offline data that new technologies make possible. If an individual's face in the street can be identified using a face recognizer and identified images from social network sites such as Facebook or LinkedIn, then it becomes possible not just to identify that individual, but also to infer additional, and more sensitive, information about her, once her name has been (probabilistically) inferred. In our third experiment, as a proof-of-concept, we predicted the interests and Social Security numbers of some of the participants in the second experiment. We did so by combining face recognition with the algorithms we developed in 2009 to predict SSNs from public data. SSNs were nothing more than one example of what is possible to predict about a person: conceptually, the goal of Experiment 3 was to show that it is possible to start from an anonymous face in the street, and end up with very sensitive information about that person, in a process of data "accretion." In the context of our experiment, it is this blending of online and offline data - made possible by the convergence of face recognition, social networks, data mining, and cloud computing - that we refer to as augmented reality.

Q. Are these results scalable?
The capabilities of automated face recognition *today* are still limited - but keep improving. Although our studies were completed in the "wild" (that is, with real social networks profiles data, and webcam shots taken in public, and so forth), they are nevertheless the output of a controlled (set of) experiment(s). The results of a controlled experiment do not necessarily translate to reality with the same level of accuracy. However, considering the technological trends in cloud computing, face recognition accuracy, and online self-disclosures, it is hard not to conclude that what today we presented as a proof-of-concept in our study, tomorrow may become as common as everyday's text-based search engine queries.

Q. What are the implications of this study?
Our study is less about face recognition and more about privacy concerns raised by the convergence of various technologies. There is no obvious answer and solution to the privacy concerns raised by widely available face recognition and identified (or identifiable) facial images. Google's Eric Schmidt observed that, in the future, young individuals may be entitled to change their names to disown youthful improprieties. It is much harder, however, to change someone's face. Other than adapting to a world where every stranger in the street could predict quite accurately sensitive information about you (such as your SSN, but also your credit score, or sexual orientation), we need to think about policy solutions that can balance the benefits and risks of peer-based face recognition. Self-regulation, or opt-in mechanisms, are not going to work, since the results we presented are based on publicly available information.

Q. Face recognition has been around for a long while, and Web 2.0 companies have deployed it in their tools/applications. What is new about this study?
Indeed, in recent times, Google has acquired Neven Vision, Riya, and PittPatt and deployed face recognition into Picasa. Apple has acquired Polar Rose, and deployed face recognition into iPhoto. Facebook has licensed Face.com to enable automated tagging. So far, however, these end-user Web 2.0 applications are limited in scope: They are constrained by, and within, the boundaries of the service in which they are deployed. Our focus, however, was on examining whether the convergence of publicly available Web 2.0 data, cheap cloud computing, data mining, and off-the-shelf face recognition is bringing us closer to a world where anyone may run face recognition on anyone else, online and offline - and then infer additional, sensitive data about the target subject, starting merely from one anonymous piece of information about her: the face.

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Facebook is a tool used for social networking, a very good tool imo. I've met people on facebook that later became good friends of mine.

I think its a shame that people hate it so much and I really think they don't understand how it can be used in a positive way. Your facebook doesn't have to be about projecting a perfect life for everyone to see ( although I'll admit it gets used for that purpose a lot ) It can be used to spread positive messages and uplifting material as well or to expose government corruption and alternative media between like minded people.

Didn't the occupy wall street movement start on facebook?
The government spies on people with facebook, so what? there are probably supercomputers that listen to every phone call you make as well, x-ray vision satellites that can see right into your house!

My point is your privacy is already compromised with a government in possession of technology we cant even dream of at this point.

I don't see the issue so clearly--- I have a lot of friends in far-off places with whom I would like to keep the option of contact open with, and facebook is a very reliable way to do that. Emails and phone numbers change with the wind, but you can always get in touch with someone via their facebook account (if they have one).

I use it as a tool to raise awareness and to connect with others with the intention of raising awareness. It's also the main way I keep in contact with friends since we now live so far away from each other.