1 July 2020
Straits Times feature on N-CRiPT research
Following paper publication and subsequent Best Student Paper Award at ACM Multimedia 2019, there has been much interest generated around N-CRiPT’s research on privacy preservation against machines including this recent Straits Times feature.
As detailed in the article, the work has now been expanded to counter facial-recognition algorithms of big tech companies by introducing subtle visual distortions on images that users post online. The technique does not affect the general aesthetics discernible by human eyes. While the facial-recognition algorithms on social media platforms are not public, the research team overcomes this by working on the common attributes of such systems and making educated guesses on how they identify faces.
The source code of the NUS algorithm is available on the NUS website for developers to incorporate into their apps. Work is still ongoing to allow it to be applied to all social media platforms.
The full article can be found here.
[Note: Professor Mohan Kankanhalli, N-CRiPT Director and Lead PI for this research, also gave an interview on CNA938 on 13 July 2020. It can be heard here.]
