<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Thank-you for your reply to this sensitive topic, Gilles. Your thoughtfulness is appreciated.<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I can see where you’re coming from: You wish to develop something for which there is a clear demand. Yet, there are other dangerous things for which there is also a demand. Take, for example, 3D-printed guns. And, I suppose, recipes for cracked meth. Many people have the ability to develop either but, have made the moral choice not to.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Indeed, the digiKam facial recognition data resides on private computers. However, and notwithstanding the “normalisation” of this nefarious technology that further development promotes, you and your team may unintentionally be providing assistance to developers of other software with more sinister motives.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">As I had alluded to earlier: “Are you okay with telling your kids that you willingly chose to participate in the development of the technology which is used to not only oppresses others in the world but possibly oppress them in the future as well?”</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On 3 Feb 2019, at 05:16, Gilles Caulier <<a href="mailto:caulier.gilles@gmail.com" class="">caulier.gilles@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><br class=""></div><br class=""><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">Le sam. 2 févr. 2019 à 22:06, J Albrecht <<a href="mailto:heviiguy@gmail.com" class="">heviiguy@gmail.com</a>> a écrit :<br class=""></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word" class="">“But it makes our lives so much more convenient”. Yup. So does clear-cutting for cattle grazing so that we can eat more burgers. <div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">digiKam is a fantastic software package for which I am thankful and use extensively. I truly appreciate all of the hard work and dedication of Gilles and his team. Yet this “focus” on Facial Recognition is short-sighted and will undoubtably be proven in the future to have been misguided. The backlash to Facebook’s blatant attacks on personal privacy is a prime example of the public’s growing outrage as the incipient erosion to liberty continues to become more clear.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">"Technology or the ability to do something isn't evil. Using that technology in a evil way is.” Sure, just like they always say in the mad US: “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”…</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">A comment was made in reference to the OpenSource community. Perhaps this community should take a look at the commercial side and see how some of those members actually take a moral stand: <a href="https://hypebeast.com/2018/12/google-employees-protest-china-search-engine" target="_blank" class="">https://hypebeast.com/2018/12/google-employees-protest-china-search-engine</a> Or, is this silly because these people are merely “paranoid”?</div></div></blockquote><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">True, but in fact no...</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">You forget one point. The data for face recognition still private, located on "your" database from "your" computer. You control all !</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The database contents sharing (for ex, when you export to a cloud service) is very limited. With 6.1.0, all pass through an unified dedicated interface shared by showfoto and digiKam, which can be used to share only few basis information. All faces information management methods do not exists here and there is no plan to add this feature.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Another point is the file metadata digiKam can set if user setup the right option. Face tags can be registered here. And this point is true. If you share this file in the cloud, webservice will be able to scan face tags in background.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">This is why the plugin interface is important, and especially the BQM workflow to process files in a queue before to export. In BQM, you have already a magic tool, named RemoveMetadata. If you process files with this tool before to export, you break all webservice scan process to detect face information in files.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The goal to include export tool to BQM, is to give to end user all the possibility to increase the "your" privacy with the Internet world. I will will do it as an unified way and automatically.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I'm aware about the faces detection and recognition "devil" uses in some country as China, but there is no similar problem here with digiKam.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Don't forget that a lots of people want to see a working feature as faces management in digiKam. We have a lots of users coming from Google Picasa who want to see the face detection/recognition working as expected. You are not alone, and developers must try to do the best for both worlds :</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">1/ provide advanced features.</div><div class="">2/ preserving users privacy everywhere.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Voila the plan for the digiKam project policy about the digiKam users privacy.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Best</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Gilles Caulier</div></div></div></div>
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