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| Microsoft’s PhotoDNS technology |
Microsoft and Facebook announced a unique new partnership on Thursday.
The social media giant is taking advantage of Microsoft’s PhotoDNS technology to identify online child pornography. Microsoft’s technology can track pictures even if they are altered or cropped and uploaded to online services. The technology is based on Microsoft’s Research investments. Facebook is the first service to start using the free technology.
Facebook has started using PhotoDNA to track down thousands of images uploaded to its servers every day. The social networking site has around 200 million images uploaded by its users every day. PhotoDNA works by creating a unique identifier for an image known to contain child pornography. The identifier represents the image and allows Microsoft’s technology to scan large data sets in a similar way to how antivirus programs operate.
The New York times, who first reported the partnership, note that Microsoft has tested the technology on its own SkyDrive, Windows Live and Bing services during the last year. The software gaint compared 10 million images to an inventory of 10,000 illegal photos and found around 125 hits per day. “We’re very passionate about PhotoDNA because we’ve seen it work,” said Brad Smith, Microsoft’ s general counsel. “We invented it through Microsoft Research, and we are trying to give it away free, including to our competitors.”
Facebook will host an online press event at 3:00 p.m. (ET) on Friday to explain how it’s using the technology.
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