back to article Google preps identity spotter app

Ever been sat in a bar and recognised someone, but don't have the balls to ask where you know them from? Soon you can rudely snap a pic to figure it out. Google is readying a mobile application that allows access to a person's personal details simply by snagging a photograph of them, CNN reports. Of course, users would have …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ooh, tricky question:

    How will the privacy features of my service designed to remove privacy work?

  2. Stuart Rogers

    Peter File?

    This is going to be the cause of so many lynchings...

  3. Stephen 2
    Thumb Down

    Mobjustice

    How long before we see a story 'Mob attacks man wrongly identified via Google face search'

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I don't want this.

    That said, I was once in a bar and someone wandered up to me with a photo of me on their phone saying 'this is you, isn't'. Neither of us had any recollection of meeting each other, it was pretty, well, odd. Especially as i seemed to be in a house, rather than a packed club or something.

  5. Dan 55 Silver badge

    Google's idea of privacy

    I can imagine it now... to be excluded from ID search just open a Google account if you haven't already, upload your photo (or more than one from different angles for more accuracy), and to prove authenticity enter your address with a scan of driver's licence or passport and as a final step a mobile phone number which will recieve a text message with a code that you must input into the form to confirm...

  6. JDX Gold badge

    title

    So in future CSI will no longer use absurd fake software, but have them sign into Google?

  7. Pete 43

    Papz

    Shirley, if it is some major sleb, their bodyguards will emerge from the shadows an throw you through the window.

  8. Stevie
    Thumb Down

    *Sigh*

    The South Park people said it best:

    "Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb".

  9. Ammaross Danan
    Coat

    Time to....

    ...break out those aviator glasses and fake mustache from the attic....

  10. Ian Michael Gumby
    Big Brother

    Just FYI... Check out Eden of the East...

    Sure its Japanese Anime, but the concept is the same so that if anyone asks, prior art does exist.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      lol

      I was thinking that a lot recently, AR barely existed when Eden of the East came out, and it was pretty integral to the show, there was the recognition system linked to a meta search system. All things that seem to have taken off recently (and strongly represent the things in the anime.)

      The central premis being smart phones linked to a system that scrapped other databases as well as information directly linked into the system. Kind of an interlink of message boards, face book, streetview, ar, and every database publicly accessible. So you could take a picture of someone and it's instantly posted for people to comment on as well as it being able to search for any comparable images in any thing it can access.

      Has to be said it's the kind of thing that's almost inevitable, as even now you could take a picture upload it to somewhere and ask for information about it and depending where you put the picture you could have answers within moments (some more informative than others.)

      It's exciting and, scary, but the applications are fascinating. For better or worse.

  11. Cameron Colley

    I thought Face book did this?

    Doesn't it offer to "tag" any photo you post up with the name of a recognised face?

  12. stranger
    Big Brother

    where have I seen this before?!

    oh ya.... the "Eden of the East" anime, take a picture of an object or person, and it will tell you what or who that person is.

  13. Fractured Cell
    Alert

    It has begun.

    "Do no evil" has morphed into "Do evil, but only surreptitiously".

    We all knew this day would come.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Check date...

    ...comfirmed.

    Oh hold it's Google + Privacy, maybe not then.

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