An artificial intelligence (AI) system developed by a team of researchers can safeguard users from malicious actors' unauthorized facial scanning. The AI model, dubbed Chameleon, employs a unique masking approach to create a mask that conceals faces in images while maintaining the visual quality of the protected image.
Furthermore, the researchers state that the model is resource-optimized, meaning it can be used even with low computing power. While the Chameleon AI model has not been made public yet, the team has claimed they intend to release it very soon.
Researchers at Georgia Tech University described the AI model in a report published in the online pre-print journal arXiv. The tool can add an invisible mask to faces in an image, making them unrecognizable to facial recognition algorithms. This allows users to secure their identities from criminal actors and AI data-scraping bots attempting to scan their faces.
“Privacy-preserving data sharing and analytics like Chameleon will help to advance governance and responsible adoption of AI technology and stimulate responsible science and innovation,” stated Ling Liu, professor of data and intelligence-powered computing at Georgia Tech's School of Computer Science and the lead author of the research paper.
Chameleon employs a unique masking approach known as Customized Privacy Protection (P-3) Mask. Once the mask is applied, the photos cannot be recognized by facial recognition software since the scans depict them "as being someone else."
While face-masking technologies have been available previously, the Chameleon AI model innovates in two key areas:
- Resource Optimization:Instead of creating individual masks for each photo, the tool develops one mask per user based on a few user-submitted facial images. This approach significantly reduces the computing power required to generate the undetectable mask.
- Image Quality Preservation:Preserving the image quality of protected photos proved challenging. To address this, the researchers employed Chameleon's Perceptibility Optimization technique. This technique allows the mask to be rendered automatically, without requiring any manual input or parameter adjustments, ensuring the image quality remains intact.
The researchers announced their plans to make Chameleon's code publicly available on GitHub soon, calling it a significant breakthrough in privacy protection. Once released, developers will be able to integrate the open-source AI model into various applications.
