Facebook and Microsoft have joined forces to eradicate child porn on the internet with a program created by Microsoft called PhotoDNA.
Facebook has said that they will begin using PhotoDNA on their site, which is the largest photo-sharing site on the Web.
PhotoDNA takes an image and creates a “hashtag” or digital fingerprint. The program then scans the internet for any photos that match the digital fingerprint. The program was created by Microsoft and Dartmouth University to find photographs that may have been altered in color, orientation and size. Because the technology is based on numbers rather than graphics, photos can be searched at a much quicker rate than the human eye.
This program was initially released in 2009, and was immediately freely licensed to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Thus far, their use of the program has been successful, and has matched thousands of photos against their database of 10,000 of the most atrocious child porn photos. Sue Hotelling, senior program manager of Microsoft’s Digital Crime Unit reports that thus far the program has scanned two billion images, without a single false positive.
Ernie Allen, President of NCMEC, says the goal has been “to ensure that the images of children being sexually assaulted are not continually redistributed and these children are not victimized again and again.”
Thus far, the use of PhotoDNA has led to several investigations and arrests. Microsoft says they hope to create a version in the future that will fingerprint video files as well.