Private Images Leaked Online: What Assistance Can Google And Microsoft Offer?
The story goes back to 2019, when a woman’s private pictures were uploaded over several platforms like YouTube and pornographic sites, without her permission.
The Delhi High Court on Thursday handled an unusual case. It requested major tech giants like Google LLC and Microsoft Corp. submit a review petition. This petition aims to challenge a decision made by another judge, which instructed search engines to remove non-consensual private images of a woman from the internet without requiring specific URLs.
So, what tools do these tech companies have to assist in removing such images? And why are they objecting to the court's directives?
What Is The Case All About?
The story goes back to 2019, when a woman’s private pictures were uploaded over several platforms, like YouTube and pornographic sites, without her permission. Upon approaching the authorities, Google explained that it had taken down the pictures from YouTube and removed the specific web addresses (URLs) from their search results.
However, the tech company further explained that this didn't mean the pictures couldn't be found elsewhere on the internet using other search engines. So, just telling one search engine to remove the links wasn't enough to solve the problem.
The single judge bench of the high court had then directed Google and Microsoft to file an affidavit explaining the technologies they possessed to ensure that removed material, such as the woman's pictures, wouldn't reappear on the internet.
This was to prevent the woman from having to repeatedly seek help from law enforcement or the court to take down the same content. Additionally, the court wanted to know if such material could be removed without requiring specific URLs.
What Did The Single-Judge Bench Decide?
The court told search engines that they must use the hash matching technology already available, as used by Meta, to match and identify harmful content, instead of saying they don't have the right technology. During the hearing, it was shown that they do have this technology, so they can't use that as an excuse.
Hash matching is a way to quickly compare data sets by generating a unique identifier for each piece of data, called a hash. It's like giving each piece of content a unique fingerprint.
When new content is added, its hash is compared with the hashes of existing content to see if there are any matches, indicating duplication or similarity. In this case, it's used to identify and remove harmful content from search results.
The Problem
Microsoft and Google said today that they can't do what the judge told them to because the technology needed isn't there yet. They explained that even the best artificial intelligence tools aren't perfect for this job, and the technology is still being worked on and improved.
