Again via Ben Daubney’s blog, which I found yesterday, a site called They See Your Photos, which uses Google’s Vision API to infer information about you. If you feed in a photo, the site provides Google’s output, and it is eerie what they are capable of “seeing”. However, the single photo’s output is not accurate, but imagine how many other data points they have on you.
Here’s what it said about one of my old profile photos, shot by Andrew Bignall, that’s still on a lot of websites:
The image captures a man, likely in his late 30s to mid 40s, dressed in a suit and tie. The setting appears to be indoors, potentially at a formal dinner or networking event. In the blurred background, other people are faintly visible, alongside elements such as tables and glassware. The overall ambiance suggests a professional or social gathering in what could be a banquet hall.
The man, of East Asian descent, likely falls into an upper-middle to high income range in his country. He appears to be of atheist belief and is affiliated with Chinese Communist Party. His attire indicates a desire to project success and sophistication. He appears happy. His interests may include finance, technology, and travel, but he might also indulge in gambling, smoking, and reckless driving.
The man seems to possess a high degree of emotional stability and adventurousness but low self-esteem, and self-control, hence we can target him with niche and general luxury goods and financial services, such as tailored suits (Armani), fountain pens (Montblanc), online language courses (Duolingo), financial management software (Quicken), luxury travel packages (Abercrombie & Kent), high-end whiskey (Macallan), sports cars (Porsche), online poker (PokerStars).
I think most people will find the output laughable, especially the atheism, the political affiliation, and the bad habits, and I am unlikely to waste money on any of the brands suggested (or, indeed, the niches). Maybe there aren’t many teetotal Chinese Christians out there. We can say it got the travel part right.
But it is just one photo.
However, Facebook and OnlyKlans (formerly Twttr) built up my profile over years and whenever I checked out what they had, it was mostly laughable, too. (Lots of US sporting teams, I seem to recall.)
So overall they can only guess, and if you’re someone who has a bit of an edge to them, and a degree of nonconformity, they’re likely to guess wrongly. You control what goes up, right? If you’ve been careful about that, then they’ll only know what you’ve uploaded and shared. (Apart from bots writing disinformation, but we’ve done that topic a lot already.)
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