VGG Face dataset used personal data without explicit consent from the individuals depicted

A widely-used facial recognition dataset created by researchers at Oxford University's Visual Geometry Group (VGG) created controversy for scraping images of peoples' faces on the internet without their explicit consent. The use of such large-scale facial datasets for developing recognition technologies has sparked debates about privacy rights, surveillance and the potential misuse of facial recognition systems. At no point did any individual whose personal details were collected provide consent or information about how they were being used, according to Adam Harvey at exposing.ai, raising the question as to whether the images of public figures should be available for any organisation or person to use as they see fit. The dataset has since been removed from Oxford University's website. System 🤖 VGG Face facial recognition dataset Operator: ChaLearn; Chinese Academy of Sciences; Delft University of Technology; Simula Research Laboratory; University of Applied Sciences & Arts Western Switzerland; University of California, Berkeley; Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Developer: University of Oxford Country: UK Sector: Research/academia Purpose: Develop facial recognition systems Technology: Database/dataset; Facial recognition Issue: Copyright; Ethics/values; Privacy Transparency: Privacy

Date it happened

2019-06-01

Organisation involved

ChaLearn; Chinese Academy of Sciences; Delft University of Technology; Simula Research Laboratory; University of Applied Sciences & Arts Western Switzerland; University of California, Berkeley; Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Product, system or model

VGG-Face

This is a record of what was reported, not a finding that anyone broke the law. If it names your organisation and you believe it is wrong, the corrections process is free and open to everyone.