million images of 100,000 people were included.
According to an investigation by the Financial Times, MS Celeb was used not only by academics, but also military researchers and private companies to train their own facial recognition solutions. Two firms stand out in particular – SenseTime and Megvii. These are Chinese companies who are involved in China’s notorious tracking endeavors.
The investigation also revealed that many of the faces included in the data were not those of public figures or celebrities. Indeed, security journalists and privacy advocates were among those included, such as Shoshana Zuboff, author of Surveillance Capitalism.
Microsoft told the Financial Times, “the site was intended for academic purposes. It was run by an employee that is no longer with Microsoft and has since been removed.”
