In a hyperconnected world, the concept of privacy is becoming less valuable, and not only because of the decisions of some companies or government agencies. The daily activity of users itself is a festival of exposure, and a solid case in favor of this idea is that of Russian photographer Egor Tsvetkov. His project called "Tu Rostro es Big Data" allowed him to identify 70 percent of the people he photographed on the subway, using facial recognition and neural networks.
The Illusion of Privacy
Last Thursday, Instagram announced that the service has 600 million registered users. That is an increase of 100 million accounts in just six months, and the trend continues to rise. Of course, not all those users are active on a daily basis, but we can get a good idea of the number of images shared. Some of them decide to activate privacy on their profiles... but what's the point? What Instagram promotes is exactly the opposite, and it's not something exclusive, so to speak. Twitter, Facebook, and its Russian equivalent VK follow a similar line.
A Test in the Subway
Let's look at that last example more closely. VK is Russia's number one social network. There are 360 million users under its wings, which is surprising if we take into account that the Russian population reaches 146 million. Therefore, saying that "everyone is there" would not be an exaggeration. Russian photographer Egor Tsvetkov decided to test that with a project called "Tu Rostro es Big Data". In essence, what he did was photograph a total of one hundred people on the subway. Tsvetkov noted that he received no complaints during the process, which could already be considered worrying. His next step was to process the images with an application called FindFace, which uses facial recognition to compare them with public VK profiles.
The application advertises an accuracy of 70 percent, and that number matches Tsvetkov's results. This project also helps us visualize the differences between real life and digital life. Everyone "sells" an image on social networks, an ideal profile. That is what happens today, and it will be a very important part of our future, whether we like it or not.
