Facebook has submitted a patent for a system which would allow the social media giant to find out information about households based on family pictures, according to a report.
BuzzFeed News recently reported that Facebook’s patent, titled, “Predicting household demographics based on image data,” would “predict who your family and other household members are, based on images and captions posted to Facebook, as well as your device information, like shared IP addresses.”
The system would also “use facial recognition and learning models trained to understand text to help Facebook better understand whom you live with and interact with most,” and would look “for clues in your profile pictures on Facebook and Instagram, as well as photos of you that you or your friends post.”
“It would note the people identified in a photo, and how frequently the people are included in your pictures,” BuzzFeed News explained. “Then, it would assess information from comments on the photos, captions, or tags (#family, #mom, #kids) — anything that indicates whether someone is a husband, daughter, cousin, etc. — to predict what your family/household actually looks like.”
In a statement to BuzzFeed News, a Facebook spokesman claimed, “We often seek patents for technology we never implement, and patents should not be taken as an indication of future plans.”
Facebook has previously submitted a number of controversial patents, typically related to data collection.
In June, Facebook submitted a patent for a system which would allow the company to record a user’s reactions to advertisements through their phone, while last year, Facebook submitted a patent to “collect ‘passive imaging data’ via device cameras that are not turned on,” according to Breitbart Tech reporter Lucas Nolan.
Facebook also previously filed a patent for a meme analysis engine.
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington, or like his page at Facebook.
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