IBM used 100 mn photos from Flickr to train AI algorithms without user permission

The people photographed on Flickr didn’t consent to have their photos used to develop facial recognition systems. A report has found that the American IT giant has been using around one million images from Flickr to train its facial recognition AI, without the permission of the people in the photos. To create this dataset of faces, IBM drew upon a huge collection of around 100 million Creative Commons-licensed images released by Flickr’s former owner, Yahoo, for research purposes. While CC image databases are often used for research purposes, taking into account the potential uses of facial recognition technology, many people might not want their faces used for this particular kind of face training. But while IBM was using Creative Commons licensed images, the company hadn’t actually informed those whose faces appear in the almost one million images what their actual faces, not just images, were being used for.