
Facebook Applied for Patent to Predict Who’s in House Based on Family Photos - minimaxir
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nicolenguyen/facebook-household-prediction-patent
======
SwellJoe
Even before we knew how nasty facebook behaves behind closed doors, I would
have found this creepy. Not that I'm surprised companies are doing it...the
profit available to whichever company grabs the most data about people is
huge, so there will always be huge resources devoted to figuring out more and
more about people (even details they've chosen not to share).

I used to be somewhat naively optimistic about companies like Google and
Facebook. I knew so many people who worked at those places, and I had such
positive feelings about their ethical core...but, in hindsight, that optimism
and that faith was poorly placed. They're companies that make money entirely
based on the profitability of violating people's privacy. Of course they're
gonna be evil; evil is where the money is in the advertising industry.

~~~
WhitneyLand
Say you founded a company tomorrow which started rocketing on unicorn
tracjectory, but wanted to do better.

What words or actions could you invoke that would allow it to be distinguished
from what some previously friendly sounding companies said or did during their
ascent?

~~~
opportune
I think the only way to stay true to a well-meaning mission statement is to
not go public, but that’s kind of a non-starter for most VC backed companies.
And even if you do stay private for a long time, the
death/departure/retirement of the founders would be likely to result in
acquisition either by PE/a public company or preempt an IPO

~~~
jniedrauer
Another option, specifically for tech companies, is to create free products
and use support contracts as a revenue generator. Companies that follow this
model include Red Hat and Elastic. They've both been tremendously successful
while adding a lot of good to the world. The open source community keeps them
honest.

------
nothis
We're 5 years away from this shit being regulated away in Europe for good.
It's ridiculous. The only reason it's not illegal is that we never had the
technology so no reason to worry about it.

~~~
buboard
is the 5 years some kind of future roadmap? Also, why should this method be
illegal?

~~~
interlocutor
This should be illegal because I have a right to privacy. Corporations should
have my permission in order to store, process and sell information about me.

~~~
cronix
Which country do you live in and specifically which "right to privacy" do you
mean? Is there a law you're referring to?

For instance, in the US, the only right to privacy we truly have is in our own
homes, with the blinds closed. If you are in your home standing in front of a
window naked, I can legally take your pic as long as I'm on public property
(street/sidewalk) and I'm not trespassing. There are other places where people
have a "reasonable expectation of privacy," such as a restroom or changing
room, etc.

> Corporations should have my permission in order to store, process and sell
> information about me.

Are you sure you haven't already given it to them? Most people don't read that
fine print of the contracts, or terms of service, or privacy statements that
they are signing or otherwise agreeing to, but it's generally in there how
they will use your info.

If you use FB, have you read all of this? You agreed to it: [1]
[https://www.facebook.com/privacy/explanation](https://www.facebook.com/privacy/explanation)
[2] [https://www.facebook.com/policies](https://www.facebook.com/policies)

~~~
ardy42
> Are you sure you haven't already given it to them? Most people don't read
> that fine print of the contracts, or terms of service, or privacy statements
> that they are signing or otherwise agreeing to, but it's generally in there
> how they will use your info.

> If you use FB, have you read all of this? You agreed to it

There's something messed up about the idea that you shouldn't expect privacy
unless you wade through the fine print perfectly, every time. The deck is
stacked against the privacy-seeking individual, and it's practically
impossible to guard one's privacy as an individual.

Businesses have gotten used to getting a free ride when it comes to managing
consent for personal data use. Those costs need to be shifted to be more
equitably shared between those businesses and individual consumers. We reforms
that put GDPR-type requirements around the use of personal data.

~~~
cronix
I wholeheartedly agree. I just don't see the US doing this though. Without
laws to back them up and have a level playing field, there are no rights. I
find it _incredibly_ sad that other countries are now protected to a greater
extend than the US, but we lack the political and social will to do actually
anything meaningful about it. I think it's also generally easier to pass
something like this (GDPR) in the EU where they don't have corporations nearly
as large as FAANG (MS too). If a large part of their economy was based on
companies that were using data the way FAANGM is, I'm not sure it would be
been possible for them to pass. That's just a gut feeling based on no real
data.

------
anonytrary
So it's illegal to peep inside your neighbors' windows, but automating this on
a mass scale is patentable?

Tangent: Now I'm curious if criminals can patent methods for committing
crimes. There's a whole science to pick-pocketing, I'd love to read clever
pick-pocketing technique patents if they exist!

~~~
adjkant
Which would be more costly? The criminal sentence for pickpocketing or the
patent infringement lawsuit that follows?

~~~
anonytrary
Additionally, would this incentivize pick-pocketers to steal more valuable
items?

------
iagooar
I wonder how many FB engineers read HN. In case some of them do: please, LEAVE
Facebook.

Don't be part of the problem. Don't justify contributing to mass surveillance
just because you can work on cool tech. Don't be evil, goddammit.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
So all of the engineers with a moral conscience leave, selecting for less
moral engineers? This doesn't seem like a great strategy.

~~~
iagooar
I would love to believe that reducing the engineering supply because most
people don't want to work there could have a significant impact on the amount
of outcome that FB can produce. Thus, a net positive, yes.

~~~
bytematic
Then you live in a wonder world because fb is the most popular booth at every
University career fair in the U.S.

~~~
iagooar
Dystopia vs utopia. I prefer utopia.

------
auslander
Google Photos, with all your Android pics, already "automatically analyzes
photos, identifying ... People, Places, and Things. Google Photos recognizes
faces, grouping similar ones together; geographic landmarks (such as the
Eiffel Tower); and subject matter, including birthdays, buildings, animals,
food, and more."

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Photos](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Photos)

~~~
Puer
It's much more than that. :) If you have a large collection of photos uploaded
to google, you can make some pretty insidious searches that will return
extremely accurate results.

Try searching "bikini" if you have any snapshots from your beach vacation
uploaded. Even with all location metadata/camera information stripped from the
images, Google was able to find 99% of them using keyword searches like that.
You can go further and search specific body parts, too. I think that's pretty
creepy as well.

The typical HN response is to dismiss arguments like this with, "Well, don't
be so careless to upload photos in the first place!" but what happens when
laypeople use Google Photos as marketed and as a backup service for their
entire lives? I don't think those people would be comfortable knowing that
Google can not only accurately identify 1) people and their friends implicitly
and 2) identify when those people are scantily clad or nude.

Just imagine a bad actor getting access to your photos via Google and being
able to instantly pull up any compromising or sensitive information you may
have forgotten about with a simple keyword search because that's something
they, for some reason, index.

~~~
auslander
And even more :)

Someone, sometime, took a party photo with you in background on Android.
Google recognized your sorry mug, and stamped it with location, date, time and
list of present people. And now it is evidence in court.

------
strict9
As creepy as it is to see detailed illustrations, I've always assumed they've
been doing this for a long time.

IP address patterns joined with timestamps, tags, and other social
interactions are too easy to link and beneficial for all sorts of targeting.

------
threeseed
For anyone thinking this is something novel. It's not.

It's very common for relevant companies e.g. telcos to try and predict the
composition of your household so they know what plan you should be on and how
much data you are likely to use.

Likewise for energy companies it's useful to optimise their demand curves.

~~~
smt88
If the headline had been, “Utility Co. uses data to predict household size,”
it wouldn’t have this much HN activity.

The problematic parts are that 1) Facebook was thinking about using personal
photos in way that users don’t expect and don’t intend; 2) the data is photos,
meaning it’s possible to ID the subjects with high accuracy; 3) Facebook is
not using this to plan their costs, but rather to help advertisers get inside
our heads.

~~~
llampx
> “Utility Co. uses data to predict household size,”

How about "Utility Co. shares data with city, predicting when you have an
Airbnb guest or take a vacation"?

I'd say a utility using data from its own systems is the definition of what
used to be allowable. Sharing that data without consent and using unorthodox
sources (detecting objects in the background) is what most people find
objectionable.

------
AceyMan
Relevant mention: just saw new billboards in LA for the Facebook Portal video
chat devices today. Anyone who uses these should expect to be data-mined good
and hard.

~~~
aacook
I feel like the best audience for the product is elderly people. The Portal
has a serious shot and helping to fight isolation and loneliness. The downside
of the Portal is giving up a bit of privacy. Isolation with elderly is such a
big problem that for me at least, it's worth the potential downside. I tried
setting my 94-year-old grandparents with an Echo Show last December and what
unfolded was hilarious: [https://nanagram.co/blog/echo-show-
unboxing](https://nanagram.co/blog/echo-show-unboxing)

But in all seriousness, in the coming weeks, when I was able to get the Echo
Show to actually work, it was an incredible tool for communicating with my
elderly grandparents. The two main problems with it (besides being unable to
say "Alexa") were them hardly ever being in view of the fixed camera and the
volume buttons not being user-friendly. Ultimately it didn't work out. My
grandmother is now between assisted living / rehab / hospitals and I'm
seriously considering the Portal.

------
fuckokcupid
If they continue keep doing these kind of creepy things, one day, it will
become Myspace.

It's already a ghost town for most part where middle aged people are adding
random political articles.

~~~
llampx
As long as those middle-aged people keep clicking ads, younger people keep
clicking Instagram stories, and angry mobs keep sending each other incendiary
messages on WhatsApp, the Facebook juggernaut has nothing to fear.

------
tehlike
Most companies file patents for various reasons, even eithout actually having
the invention implemented. Often times, there is compensation for the employee
in case one is filed

~~~
hkyeti
Most companies? Source for this claim that the majority of companies in our
industry do this.

~~~
smt88
Anecdotally, it does seem like most of the big tech companies do this. It’s a
side effect of the “first to file” rather than “first to invent” system in the
US.

That doesn’t make it better, though.

------
urandom99
I had a small though experiment about how to model a system influenced heavily
by social media that tracks users and builds extensive profiles of them.

On first level, such a system (let's call it A) is equivalent to a imaginary
loaded die with a control that lets one control what comes out when rolling
it. A system (let's call it B) without social media is more like a fair die.
On a long run, the net outcome of system A will be heavy with induced biases
and that of system B will be fair but could be with slight biases due to
natural randomness. If the system A is controlled by private interests rather
than societal welfare, it would lead to unhealthy societal setup. Hence, the
system A is inherently flawed and is also dangerous to overall well-being.
System B doesn't have this flaw inherently.

... PS: purely thoughts and so abstract.

------
samstave
What if someone reveals the GPS coordinates of the FB eecutive offfices?

What if FB execs "checkin" every place they are?

Do they want this? No.

What if FB were to scan every single license plate that drove by their HQ
campus and reported that to the authorities?

Would people want that?

Where is the line drawn?

------
Simulacra
I think if any company will reach that of The Circle, it will be Facebook.

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scarejunba
This is cool. I wouldn't have to tag people as mom, son, etc. My photos would
be auto-categorized. If the kids are home and the thermostat is up that's
fine. If not, it's not.

Yeah, definitely cool.

~~~
llampx
I'm a bit more cynical and think that the beneficiary of this is not you and
the objective is not to reduce your electricity bills. Rather, you (collective
you) are the product, and the companies that want your attention and will pay
the most are the customers.

------
tomashertus
Ohh another genius engineers needed a patent added into their resume in order
to ask for a promotion.

------
buboard
Isn't the patent trivially contestable? Dont advertisers mine such data to
infer relationships, such as parents/children? Don't people infer the kind of
relationship just by looking at a (physical) photo of a couple in a house ?

~~~
rustcharm
Go ahead and contest it then.

------
flashgordon
With all this what would a paid market for WhatsApp/<share stuff only with
people I care about app> with full privacy look like?

Or is this what slack is?

------
jsizzle
Is there a real advantage for them to patent this as opposed to keeping it a
trade secret? Why would they patent this and make their intentions known
publicly?

~~~
gradys
My thoughts exactly. It's easy enough to hide infringement of a patent like
this that I doubt they'd ever be able to enforce it anyway. Did they forget
that journalists scan patent filings, especially from big, newsworthy
companies?

------
longerthoughts
Is it naive of me to be completely fine with this?

~~~
interlocutor
Yes, it is naive. Is it acceptable for Target (or FB or Google) to know that a
girl is pregnant before she has shared the news with her family?

[https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/06/big-data-whats-
even...](https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/06/big-data-whats-even-
creepier-than-target-guessing-that-youre-pregnant.html)

Human beings have a right to privacy and right to control who knows their
personal information.

~~~
longerthoughts
I absolutely agree that we have the right to privacy and control of our
personal information, but I'm choosing to offer the information they're using.
I see how that gets tricky at a larger scale with many people who won't
necessarily assume or know that this is being done, but I have no issue with
them discovering information about me personally based on the information I'm
offering them.

~~~
untog
Right, and if the FB audience was all hackers we'd be fine. But I honestly
don't think that the average person _can_ meaningfully consent to data
collection like this any more. Unless you have deep technical knowledge it's
not even slightly clear what you're giving up and what it means.

~~~
longerthoughts
I understand what you're saying and agree that it's difficult to achieve real
transparency. I believe that companies can and should do a better job of
helping users understand what they're doing with data. I just wonder where the
line is when you're talking about inferred information that a company can
independently guess based on information you've agreed to disclose.

------
rubenhak
FB should be renamed to EvilCorp...

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adamnemecek
Can this company just quietly go away?

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schintan
Is a PR campaign in progress against Facebook ? Lots of negative articles in a
short period of time.

~~~
muthdra
Maybe they finally broke enough things.

