Facebook is teaming up with an Australian government agency in developing a new technology that aims to prevent sexual or intimate images from being shared online without the subject"s consent.
According to eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, one in five Australian women aged 18-45 and one in four indigenous Australians are victims of revenge porn. "We see many scenarios where maybe photos or videos were taken consensually at one point, but there was not any sort of consent to send the images or videos more broadly," she shared.
The commissioner further stated that through the initiative, victims of "image-based" abuse would be able to take actions before such photos can be posted on Facebook, Messenger, or Instagram.
If a person is worried that their intimate photos will be posted online, they can get in touch with the eSafety Commissioner, which might require them to send the images to themselves on Messenger. "It would be like sending yourself your image in email, but obviously this is a much safer, secure end-to-end way of sending the image without sending it through the ether," according to Grant.
Once the image is up, Facebook would reportedly hash the file and create a digital fingerprint. At this point, if someone else tried uploading the same photos and they match with the ones hashed, the upload will be blocked.
The technology will also utilize artificial intelligence, and any images uploaded will not be stored. Antigone Davis, Facebook"s Head of Global Safety, said that Australia is only one of four countries where the technology will be tested.
Back in 2015, Microsoft set up a new website where users can request an image to be taken down from Bing, OneDrive, and Xbox Live.
Source: eSafety, ABC News via BleepingComputer | Internet porn image via Shutterstock