Your eyes meet across a crowded street/club/train carriage. You smile shyly, they can’t help but grin lopsidedly back. Everything goes soft focus. It could be the beginning of a beautiful romance; but you’re running late for an appointment/swept away by dancers/this is your stop. You’ll never see them again, unless you happen to be Gwyneth Paltrow and this is actually an identi-kit Hollywood rom com.
Good news for you, hapless romantics. The Astonishing Tribe is back and astonishing us once again with a facial recognition app for Android. The prototype app, called Recognizr, was made using Polar Rose recognition software, and can locate someone’s social network profiles and contact information using just their face (see the video above for a nifty demo). No more wondering who that mysterious girl was – you just need to find a sly way to take her picture and be prepared to explain how you found her again.
Although we’re choosing to be rather romantic about it, other more excitable news sources have locked on to the stalker-friendly capabilities of the app. The Sun warns that ‘women could be stalked by PERVERTS’ and goes on to quote Simon Davies of Privacy International; ‘It takes the dangers that already exist and increases them infinitely.’
But if you’re careful about what information you put online and ensure your social networking privacy settings are up to scratch, then you shouldn’t have anything to fear. If someone is intent on stalking you, they’ll just follow you home. So rest easy.
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