Apparently I look like David Trimble (pictured right), the Northern Ireland politician and joint winner of the 1998 Nobel Peace prize. Well, 67% like him anyway, according to face recognition website MyHeritage.com.
Here’s the deal. You give them your photo, they match it against their database of celebrities and pick the closest. And in return, they get to test their face recognition software — and along the way build up a database of over a million faces (so far) matched to names and email addresses and family connections. Neat eh?
A not a single privacy concern, not one. Because their privacy policy includes the magic words saying that they’re firmly committed to protecting your privacy. So it must be true.
I also look 61% like actor Anthony Hopkins, 56% like American poet Ezra Pound, and 55% like actors Annette Bening (should I frock up now?) and Hugh Grant (should he frock up now?).
And 53% like Boris Karloff, which doesn’t thrill me at all.
Ah, the devil’s in the detail…
Will MyHeritage disclose any of my personal information to third parties?
bqNo. MyHeritage will not disclose any of your personal information, except with your knowledge and consent as described below, or as may be required by law, or to protect the rights or property of MyHeritage.
So, they won’t pass on my personal information, except when they do. The typical weasel-words of privacy policies, and something I’ll return to another time…
By the way, my thanks to The Adventures of Queer Penguin for alerting me to this site.
I wonder what would happen if you sent them a photo of David Trimble?
And are they based in Langley, VA?
OK, I have to try that! Using the picture here (which I “borrowed” from the Wikipedia article), I get a 57% match with the late US Chief Justice “William Rhenquist”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhenquist, 54% with “some footballer called Zico”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zico, 53% with Charles Bronson, 52% with George W Bush and (tada!) David Trimble. And it goes down from there.
The much-vaunted face recognition software only rates a 53% match when they’re both straight-on face pictures of _the same man_! I’m guessing it works a _lot_ better when trying to pick faces at crowded airports and tube stations. Good eh?
“Go right through, Mr President,” as they wave through the footballer.
I look more like David Trimble than David Trimble does!
But that’s OK. “MyHeritage.com”:http://www.myheritage.com is registered to “Inbaltech Ltd” in Bnei Atarot, Israel. It ain’t a CIA thing. Probably.
I’ve now had three different people point out that “MyHeritage.com”:http://www.myheritages.com isn’t all that complex. Two pics with, say, the face looking down and to the left, with a bit of a bald head, and it’s a match — or at least what our human guts tell us isn’t close enough.