After yesterday ’s intelligence thatGoogle catch a sex offenderwho’d left no virtual trace of his misdeeds outside of his Gmail account , people were clearly a little conflicted about what that meant in term of privacy . Now , the society has add up out to ( every so slenderly ) clear up their method acting : It ’s not you they ’re tracking , but the illegitimate content itself .
In a statement to the AFP , a Google representative explain :
Each minor intimate abuse image is yield a unique digital fingerprint which enable our scheme to describe those flick , including in Gmail .
It is authoritative to remember that we only employ this technology to discover tiddler sexual ill-usage imagery — not other email content that could be associated with condemnable activity ( for example using e-mail to diagram a burglary ) .
And while not observe by name in the command , the integral “ fingerprinting ” process was outlined by Google Chief Legal Officer , David Drummond , ina Telegraph articlejust over a class ago . In it , Drummond outlines Google ’s efforts with the Internet Watch Foundation to “ proactively identifying child contumely image that Google can then remove from our search railway locomotive . ” And this tagging process has beenabout 7 years in the making :
Since 2008 , we have used “ hash ” technology to tag known baby intimate abuse image , set aside us to identify twinned images which may exist elsewhere . Each offending figure in force gets a unique fingermark that our computers can recognise without humankind birth to view them again .
So while Google is skim your inbox , it ’s only looking for those practical items it ’s already tick as illegal . Your privacy is still intact , and justice is , thankfully , being served . [ AFPviaEngadget ]
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