Biometric data and facial identification technology’s ramifications continue to rapidly evolve, presenting a host of concerns regarding privacy, ownership, and discrimination. Earlier this week, one of the world’s biggest photo content licensing companies, Getty Images, announced its new “enhanced model release form” that attempts to deal with at least some of these issues — unfortunately, it’s less a major step forward in protecting people’s likenesses as much as it is a reminder that this troubling tech is here to stay, and vague safeguards are the best we can get right now.
“I... agree that [a model’s images] may be altered and used to develop and improve machine learning algorithms, artificial intelligence, and other technologies,” reads the new contract, later adding that a model must accept that their biometric data could be used in these circumstances “except for the purpose of unique identification.”
