Last week I brought you a story about a new technology from start-up Polar Rose that creates detailed facemaps of people in photos to make searching images easier.  The system would then use identified facemaps to put a name to the same face in any picture on the internet.  Polar Rose also plans to release web browser plugins that let web surfers tag photos with the names of people that they recognize.

If successful, the technology could have many beneficial uses and far-reaching implications.  But as some are starting to point out, it also has a darker, exploitable side.

Using the example provided by the Associated Press, pretend that you've called in sick to work.  Right as you're walking across the street in Times Square, a tourist takes a photo that you just happen to be appear in the background of.  Using Polar Rose's technology, your boss would be able to find the photo and see that you were not in fact sick.

I have a small issue with the privacy aspects of this as well.  There are a lot of predators out there that are already using the internet for their twisted purposes.  Imagine being able to search for a name and finding a dozen photos of that person from a dozen different places.  Using only those images, someone could determine where that person lives… or at least spends a lot of time.  They could figure out who their friends are.

Even scarier, someone could find a picture of someone they wanted to pursue and, using the new technology, find out the name of a complete stranger.

Polar Rose doesn't see the privacy issue as much of a concern.  Nikolaj Nyholm, CEO of Polar Rose, told the AP: 

"A lot of pictures have been published, and privacy has been assumed due to obscurity.  This will highlight the fact that there is no such thing as privacy by obscurity."

Be that as it may, I think the company should fully consider the implications of their technology and "get a few more answers" before they go public with it.  I can certainly see the beneficial aspect of the system.  I think it's a very cool technology.  But no technology, regardless of how cool it is, should be released without first weighing all of the possible side effects.

Just like with medications, sometimes the side effects out-weight the benefits.