VOA慢速英语2011--Living in a World With Facial Recognitio

Technology Report - Living in a World With Facial Recognition

科技报道 - 面部识别软件正走进我们的生活

This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.

这里是美国之音慢速英语科技报道。

A new study looks at privacy in a world where computers can increasingly recognize faces in a crowd or online. Alessandro Acquisti at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, led the study.

一项新的研究着眼于当今世界计算机面部识别技术日趋完善情况下的隐私状况。宾夕法尼亚州匹兹堡市卡内基美隆大学亨氏学院的亚历山德罗·阿奎斯蒂（Alessandro Acquisti）领导了这项研究。

Professor Acquisti says social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn represent some of the world's largest databases of identities. He sees increasing threats to privacy in facial recognition software and cloud computing 1 -- the ability to store huge amounts of information in data centers.

阿奎斯蒂教授表示，Facebook和LinkedIn等社交网站代表着一些世界上最大的身份数据库。他从面部识别软件和云计算中看到了对隐私日益增长威胁。云计算具备将大量信息储存到数据中心的能力。

ALESSANDRO ACQUISTI: "The convergence of all these technologies -- face recognition, social networks, cloud computing -- and all these advances in statistical 2 re-identification techniques and data mining are creating this world where you can blend together online and offline data. You can start from an anonymous 3 face and end up with sensitive inferences about that person.”

阿奎斯蒂：“脸部识别、社交网络、云计算这些科技的融合，以及统计识别技术和数据挖掘方面的进步使得这个世界可以将线上线下(即网上与网下)数据连接到一起。你可以通过一个不知名的面孔得到有关这个人的敏感推论。”

Recognition systems measure things like the size and position of a nose, the distance between the eyes and the shape of cheekbones. The software compares lots of images to try to identify the person. This is what the professor means by "statistical re-identification techniques."

识别系统会测量鼻子大小与位置、两眼之间的距离和颧骨形状等数据，然后该软件会对比大量图像，试图识别出这个人。这就是阿奎斯蒂教授所说的“统计识别技术”。

A couple share a computer to browse 4 Facebook at an Internet cafe in Jakarta, Indonesia

Facial recognition programs are used in police and security operations. But the software is increasingly popular in other uses, including social media sites.

面部识别程序用于警察或安保工作。但该软件在其它用途方面也日渐普及，包括社交媒体网站。

For the study, the Carnegie Mellon team used software from Pittsburg Pattern Recognition, or PittPat. Google bought that company last month. The software can recognize faces in photos and videos.

在这项研究中，卡耐基梅隆大学研究小组使用的软件来自匹兹堡图像识别公司（简称PittPat）。上个月Google收购了这家公司。该软件可以识别出照片和视频中的面孔。

The researchers did three experiments. First, they collected profile photos from a dating website. Its users try to protect their privacy by not listing their real name. But comparing their photos to pictures on Facebook identified one out of ten people.

研究人员进行了三个实验。首先，他们从一家交友网站上收集了档案照片，该网站的用户试图以化名来保护自己的隐私。但通过将他们的照片与Facebook上的照片进行对比，识别出了1/10的用户。

In the second experiment, the Carnegie Mellon researchers asked permission to take pictures of students on campus. They compared these to photos on Facebook. This time they correctly identified one-third of the students.

在第二个实验中，卡耐基梅隆大学的研究人员申请拍摄校园内学生的照片，并将其与Facebook上的照片对比。这一次，他们准确地识别出1/3的学生。

In the third experiment, they tried to see how much they could learn about people just from a photo. They found not only names but birthdates, personal interests and even locations, when people listed them. And Professor Acquisti says the technology is only improving.

在第三个实验中，他们尝试仅通过一张照片可以获得多少这个人的信息。如果这个人填写了相关信息，他们不但找出了这个人名字，还包括生日、个人爱好，甚至是居住地。阿奎斯蒂教授表示，这项技术还在不断提高。

ALESSANDRO ACQUISTI: “Because face recognizers keep improving accuracy, because cloud computing keeps offering more power, and because more and more images of ourselves are going to be online, we are getting really close to this future where what we did as a proof of concept will be possible to do by anyone on a massive scale.”

阿奎斯蒂I：“由于面部识别准确性不断提高，云计算能力不断增强，我们越来越多的照片被传到网上，我们所进行的这样一次概念验证性的实验，将成为大范围内任何人都能做到的一件事情，我们正非常接近这样一天。”

In June, Facebook launched a facial recognition system to help users "tag" or list the names of people in photos. Germany last month became the first country to declare this software an illegal violation 5 of privacy.

六月份，Facebook推出了一个面部识别系统，以帮助用户在照片上标注出人的名字。上个月，德国成为首个宣布这一软件非法侵犯隐私的国家。

And that's the VOA Special English Technology Report, written by June Simms. Share your thoughts about privacy and technology at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.