COMPARE YOUR SELFIE TO ART? NOT IN TEXAS
GOOGLE USES FACIAL-RECOGNITION SOFTWARE TO FIND PICTURE-PERFECT PORTRAIT.
Why the bias against Texans, Google? (And Illinoisans, while we’re at it.)
A new feature of the company’s free Arts & Culture app that appeared last weekend invites selfie takers to find their doppelgängers in portraits from Google’s database of more than 70,000 images of paintings.
Social media lit up with the side-by-side images, which are at least more educational than the usual match-your-face-to-acelebrity sort of games that appeal to the narcissist in all of us. And, you know, users might also actually learn something about art history. Unless they’re in Texas and Illinois. In which case they are apparently so invisible that no facial-recognition software on Google’s Earth can match their likeness.
Google has not responded to the Houston Chronicle’s request for an explanation, although the company did confirm to the San Francisco Chronicle that the game was unavailable to users in Texas and Illinois.
One explanation might be legal, in the way of “biometric privacy” laws. According to a Washington Post article from 2015, “There are not federal laws that specifically govern the use of facial-recognition technology. But while few people know it, and even fewer are talking about it, both Illinois and Texas have laws against using such technology to identify people without their informed consent.”
Although, if you choose to play a game, you’re consenting, right?
Houstonian Elizabeth Sosa Bailey, a local producer for The Moth, managed to access the game from Redding, Calif. Her selfie was matched with Nicolas de Largilliere’s circa-1720 portrait of Pierre Cadeau de Mongazon — a painting that resides, ironically enough, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Other Houstonians could only look longingly at the images friends were posting from other places.
“I want to play!” said Jonathan Bietler, on his Facebook page. “Annoyed!” posted A.J. Mistretta. Erin Elizabeth Krimian, an artist who said much of the Arts & Culture app could be useful to her, sent a blistering review to Google. “IRONIC to create an app that is art for all and then exclude millions of people.” She threatened to stop using gmail, Google’s email app, and quipped, “You will no longer be invited into my home, to holiday dinners AND I’m writing you out of my will.”
App users in Texas and Illinois may be able to access the game by turning off Google location services on their iPhones; of course, that is also the gateway to maps and other useful information.
Best selfie-match for the location-deprived users now? An angry-faced emoji.