The AI Supply Chain Runs on Ignorance
Tech companies often fail to tell users how their data will be employed. Sometimes, the firms can’t even anticipate it themselves.
The users posting photos to Ever, a mobile and desktop app similar to Flickr and Photobucket, had a choice. If they opted in to facial recognition, the app’s software could analyze photo subjects’ faces, which meant it could group photos, let users search photos by the people in them, suggest tags, and make it easier to find friends and family using the app.
For users, this is tidy and convenient. For Ever, it’s lucrative: NBC News reported last week that , trained on user photos, to law-enforcement agencies and the U.S. military. As more people opt in to facial recognition, the system grows more advanced. Ever did not respond to requests for, but privacy advocates are outraged.
