Thanks to new app NameTag, complete strangers will be able to photograph and identify you anonymously by matching your picture with those you have uploaded to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other online social networking platforms.
NameTag is coming soon to Apple, Android and Google Glass, and will allow users to upload pictures taken on their smartphone’s camera to a server, where NameTag will run a comparative analysis against millions of social networking profiles and send back a name with a list of their social media presences, along with additional pictures and where they might have been taken.
Eventually FacialNetwork, the company behind NameTag, hopes to implement a system that will identify people’s online dating website profiles like OKCupid and Match.com from pictures uploaded to the app.
According to Facial Network’s Kevin Alan Tussy, anyone interested will be able to opt-out of identification — but to do so, they’ll have to go on www.NameTag.ws and create a NameTag profile directly.
“It’s not about invading anyone’s privacy; it’s about connecting people that want to be connected,” Tussy told CNET. “We will even allow users to have one profile that is seen during business hours and another that is only seen in social situations.”
Google has yet to allow facial recognition on Glass apps, and one perhaps slightly less controversial use of the app will be its ability to identify photos uploaded to criminal databases like the National Sex Offender Registry.