Ever sent a dirty picture and had instant regret?
In Australia, Facebook are trialing a scheme where you can send them your nude photos so they can ‘hash’ the images - converting them to digital code to prevent the same image ever being uploaded again.
Feeling sassy and sexy enough to take a nude shot and send it to your lover can be eMpowering, but what happens when the tables turn sour? You’ve broken up but he still has your intimate pics stored on his phone. If you suspect that he would betray your trust and humiliate you by posting them on social media without your consent you are helpless to the situation. Although revenge porn is a crime, and the police will take it very seriously, the damage has already been done if your friends and family have seen it, and the likes and shared have committed the photo to digital eternity.
However, what about if you’re one step ahead of the game? The idea is that you can use Messenger to send the images to bots on Facebook. They use technology to convert the image into a unique digital fingerprint that can be used to identify and block any attempts to re-upload that same image.
Facebook is piloting the technology in Australia in partnership with a government agency headed up by the e-safety commissioner, Julia Inman Grant, who told ABC it would allow victims of “image-based abuse” to take action before pictures were posted to Facebook, Instagram or Messenger.
“It would be like sending yourself your image in email, but obviously this is a much safer, secure end-to-end way of sending the image without sending it through the ether,” Ms Inman Grant said.
Yep, you heard that right. It’s like sending your nudes... to yourself.
“They’re not storing the image, they’re storing the link and using artificial intelligence and other photon matching technologies,” she said.
“So if somebody tried to upload that same image, which would have the same digital footprint or hash value, it will be prevented from being uploaded.”
A Facebook spokeswoman said the company was exploring additional partners and countries.
