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by moduspol 3185 days ago
Claims like these make privacy-focused efforts less valuable, and I wish people wouldn't make them.

What value is there in taking care to store biometric data only locally, in a separate chip inaccessible even to the OS, if people will simply claim it's equivalent to keeping a remote database of millions of faces?

1 comments

People will be much less likely to make those claims if you clearly state where the data is being stored. This article + their project page doesn't mention anything about privacy.

I don't know anything about Squeezenet, but it makes a lot of calls to storage.googleapis.com. I wouldn't be surprised if it's making some PUT requests. https://github.com/googlecreativelab/teachable-machine/blob/...

People need to ask the question before making assumptions. In the case of Apple, they said it directly in the presentation of FaceID as well as TouchID IIRC. Yet people made these claims anyway. For this project, they also state it clearly on the page:

> Are my images being stored on Google servers?

> No. All the training is happening locally on your device.

Where is it clearly stating that? I couldn't find anything in the linked article + the github repo + teachablemachine.withgoogle.com

But I do agree people need to ask the question before making assumptions. Sadly, the two popular mindsets is either to not think about privacy at all, or believe that everything is infringing on your privacy.

1. Go to the site: https://teachablemachine.withgoogle.com

2. Press "Start" or "Skip tutorial" (You don't have to give access to anything)

3. Scroll down to read the FAQ

Ah, I didn't get that far due to it requesting the webcam. I'd prefer that they state it before the request, but an FAQ at the start of the project is good enough.
I think the post above was referring to Apple, not Google. In the latter case, I think the claim is justified.