PicAlert!: a system for privacy-aware image classification and retrieval

Abstract

Photo publishing in Social Networks and other Web2.0 applications has become very popular due to the pervasive availability of cheap digital cameras, powerful batch upload tools and a huge amount of storage space. A portion of uploaded images are of a highly sensitive nature, disclosing many details of the users' private life. We have developed a web service which can detect private images within a user's photo stream and provide support in making privacy decisions in the sharing context. In addition, we present a privacy-oriented image search application which automatically identifies potentially sensitive images in the result set and separates them from the remaining pictures.