So why do people take the risk of uploading a photo to an AI? One motive is self-presentation. — Pixabay
MUNICH: Upload a photo to an AI-based image generator and see yourself made into an action figure or a Barbie doll in its retail box. It’s a fun gimmick but there are definite downsides, data protection advocates warn, noting how easy it also is for your face to be deepfaked onto naked photos or pornographic footage.
The problem is that many image generators save the photo you upload – and perhaps also your personal data such as IP or email address. You reveal more than you think and lose control, warns Mimikama, a fact-checking site based in Austria that seeks to educate people about online abuse.
"In addition to your own image, data such as name, place of residence and hobbies can also be involved, depending on what the user inputs,” says Katharina Grasl of the Bavarian Consumer Centre in Germany.
From a photo, AI can recognise someone’s face, age, posture, and emotions, says Mimikama. New research has even shown that AI is now suprisingly good at guessing your location even from obscure photographs without recognisable places in the background.
In the worst-case scenario, the saved photos could be re-used in deepfakes or abusive content, making the AI photo trend especially troubling when it comes to the use of children's faces.
Conceivably, your photo could appear as a response to other users, for example, if they ask the AI a question. The data could also be used for phishing attacks or other criminal purposes, warn consumer advocates.
So why do people take the risk of uploading a photo to an AI? One motive is self-presentation. You can experiment with your own identity and present yourself as you would like to be, says media researcher Claudia Riesmeyer from the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. You can highlight what you'd like to be and conceal what you don’t like.
This is particularly appealing for adolescents, explains Riesmeyer: "For example, if someone wants to try out what they look like with blue hair, they can try it out on their avatar – without having to go to the hairdresser.”
You may be helping to train the AI
The AI can also benefit from your uploads if it’s trained using the images. Data protection advocates say there’s also a possibility that photos could be fed into biometric facial recognition systems, which would enable AI to recognise a person's face and know who they are.
"Camera systems that can pick out individuals from large crowds based on biometric data could have significant consequences," Hamburg's data protection commissioner Thomas Fuchs recently warned. Such systems have recently been banned in the European Union (EU).
A lot depends on what usage rights the AI has granted itself. If you upload a photo of yourself it may end up floating around somewhere in the vastness of the internet, possibly with all sorts of information about you attached to it.
Deleting it is difficult and sometimes impossible. This is especially true if the providers are not located in the EU, where the General Data Protection Regulation applies, allowing both the right to information and the right to deletion.
One thing you should certainly never do is to upload photos of friends to an AI image generator without their consent. It’s also not advisable to share images of yourself as a well-known toy figure on social media.
For example if you post an image of yourself as a “Star Wars” figure the trademark owner, Disney, could consider its rights violated. “It's just a joke” has never protected someone against a cease and desist letter, Mimikama says.
Before uploading your photo to an AI, the Bavarian Consumer Centre advises asking yourself whether it’s worth disclosing your data by doing so.
Children, in particular, should be sensitised to the risks and supervised. And if a child’s image is misused? Then secure evidence, for example, with screenshots, contact the provider and possibly even involve the police. – dpa/Tribune News Service
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