A disturbing site allows you to track down any person, starting from a simple photo. “It’s just a tool and should be used responsibly,” says the company.
After an article in the NY Times was mentioned, there was a lot of talk about a creepy site that allows you to track down any person, starting with a simple photo . It’s called PimEyes and it’s a freemium product, in the sense that after a few trial attempts, you have to pay a monthly subscription to continue using it.
PimEyes uses facial recognition to track a person. Just upload a photo and the site will scan every corner of the network to find any other image or information about that person present online. As you can imagine, such a site opens the door to numerous possible abuses: think of a person who decides to take a photo of an unknown (or a stranger) and then retrieve his social profiles and be able to contact her.
As we explained above, to use the full version of the site you have to pay and not even a little: 35.99 euros per month for a total of 25 searches every day. Curiously, PimEyes also offers a ‘protection’ service, which is called PROtect . It does exactly the opposite of the other subscription: it provides a team of experts who help the user to remove any of his photos on the internet. In short, PimEyes first provides any person with the tools they need to violate your privacy, and then helps you solve the mess it has created. A nice paradox.
The site provides some photos and various information, which are however obscured. To unlock all the information you have to pay.
The site got into trouble in 2021, when the German data protection authority opened an investigation into it, suspecting (probably with every reason) that it violated the GDPR. The portal, which had been created by two students, was bought by a Georgian entrepreneur, who in the meantime has moved its headquarters to Dubai, thus escaping European legislation.
Faced with the allegations, PimEy has specified that the photos obtained through the searches on the site are not saved by the company – and that in any case these are all available on sites open to the public. “We are just a tool and people are required to use it responsibly,” reads a note published on the company’s blog. “The same is true for a hammer: you can use it to be a craftsman or to kill”. An analogy that certainly does not contribute to making PimEye any less disturbing than it already is. Opening image via New York Times.
