--- title: "Creepy App Used Stolen Pictures of Dead People to Train Its Facial Recognition Algorithm" description: "As Wired reports, a facial recognition search site called PimEyes has been using stolen photos of dead people to train its algorithms." date: "2023-03-14" modified: "2023-03-14" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/pictures-dead-people-facial-recognition-algorithm" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Facial recognition" - "Future Society" tags: - "biometric data" - "cyber security" - "facial recognition" - "privacy" --- # Creepy App Used Stolen Pictures of Dead People to Train Its Facial Recognition Algorithm ![As Wired reports, a facial recognition search site called PimEyes has been using stolen photos of dead people to train its algorithms.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* Consider a new digital privacy fear unlocked. As [*Wired* reports](), a facial recognition search site called PimEyes, which claims to create biometric human "faceprints," has been using stolen photos of dead people to train its algorithms. According to the report, Cher Scarlett, a software engineer and writer, made the discovery while searching the site for images of herself. She found something quite shocking: photos of her mother, her long-dead great-great-great-grandmother, and perhaps most startlingly, her sister, who had died in 2018 at the young age of 30. All of these photos, Scarlett says, seem to have been taken from images that she and her family have personally uploaded to Ancestry.com, a site that overtly prohibits "scraping data, including photos, from Ancestry's sites and services as well as reselling, reproducing, or publishing any content or information found on Ancestry" in its [terms and conditions](). But this isn't just a violation of Ancestry's policy. Scarlett's deceased family members simply couldn't have given PimEyes their permission to train their algorithm with these photos. "My sister is dead," Scarlett told *Wired*. "She can't consent or revoke consent for being enrolled in this." This kind of violation seems eerily akin to the story of [Henrietta Lacks](), whose cells have been used in medical research and drug development for decades — but were gathered, multiplied, and distributed for research postmortem and without her consent. While it may be a different field, the point that your privacy should be respected after your death still stands. PimEyes didn't have much to offer in terms of an explanation. "PimEyes only crawls websites that officially allow us to do so," company director Giorgi Gobronidze told *Wired*. "It was … very unpleasant news that our crawlers have somehow broken the rule." And though the site technically has an opt-out feature that can allow users to restrict a specific image of themselves from being used in the engine, Gobronidze admitted that the opt-out feature "will not work with 100 percent efficiency always." It's worth noting that this isn't the first time that PimEyes has been caught up in controversy. As *Wired* points out, child privacy has been widely noted as a concern. But while Gobronidze told *Wired* that PimEyes launched a "multistep security protocol" to protect children starting January 9, some company partners, including a few NGOs, are "whitelisted" and can perform unrestricted searches on the platform. In other words, the rules don't always apply. Elsewhere, both [human rights groups]() and experts have alleged that the site enables [stalking]() and other abuses. And to that end, experts have [further warned]() that data stolen from sites like Ancestry doesn't just harm the deceased. It might also be used to stalk, dox, and otherwise harm the living, who are often just a click or so away. "While I think \[Gobronidze's\] correct to say that PimEyes won't directly through their website give you that person’s identity, you're a click away from a website that does have their name on it," Daniel Leufer, a senior policy analyst at digital rights group Access Now, told *Wired*. "It's going to give you a load of URLs which in many cases will allow you to identify that person." PimEyes' misdeeds are symptomatic of a future where our online identities and even our faces are anything but protected from prying eyes. And despite the promise of guardrails, both PimEyes and Ancestry have failed in their attempts to protect our privacy. "I used \[Ancestry\] for what it’s intended for — to find out where I come from. It was really exciting until it wasn't," Scarlett told *Wired*. "Nobody is uploading photos into Ancestry thinking that they're going to be enrolled into a biometric identifier for facial recognition software without their knowledge or consent." "It just feels incredibly violating," she added. **READ MORE:** [*A Face Recognition Site Crawled the Web for Dead People's Photos*]() \[*Wired*\] ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()