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Hi Girls,
As you're no doubt aware, facial recognition software is getting better and more ubiquitous all the time. For example, I uploaded an image of myself in male mode at a site called "PimEyes" and within 3 seconds it returned just about every photo of me en femme that I've ever posted here at CDH. Three. Freaking. Seconds. As someone who is completely closeted (except for my wife), this is disconcerting to say the least.
Note this is not a CDH issue - we should all be aware of this site's disclaimer that the images we post here are publicly available online. But I always assumed that my makeup skills and wigs would make it difficult for me to be recognized by those who know me. So much for that illusion. It's not really a showstopper for me, as I firmly believe that I will be outed sooner or later, and although unpleasant, it would be a welcome relief from the constant inner turmoil associated with hiding this part of myself.
But I felt the need to post this to the forums as a warning to other closeted girls. This software is not only out there, it could be used to out you. Now for some good news: you can chose to opt out of being recognized on the "PimEyes" website - you just need to fill out an online request form. There may be other facial recognition websites out there - I still need to do some more researching. If you are aware of any, please let us all know, because I believe there is a legal right to have your data removed, but you have to make the request at each site separately.
Mona
@yestothedress Thank you for this information. I have not posted a photo of myself en femme anywhere and I'm happy I haven't. This just reinforces that decision. In the current political climate, I think we all need to be aware of the unpleasant possibilities of the available technology.
Tia
@tia yes Tia - not posting photos of ourselves online (either in male or female presentation) is probably the safest way to go. But for me at least, CDH is the only place that I share this part of myself with others. I’m willing to take the risk of being recognized, with or without someone using FR software. Let’s face it, nothing you do online is completely private anymore, especially if someone is tech savvy and wants to inflict hardship of some kind on you.
@yestothedress Yes, unfortunately that's true I guess we just have to take our chances and be ourselves.
Tia
@yestothedress Mona, this is my thinking entirely. We're so happy that you share your gorgeous pics with us. I'm prepared to take the risk as validation from the girls here is hugely important to me xx.
@yestothedress Wow Mona! Having run into a few people when out as Genivieve and not being recognized (or so I thought) this is surprising!
Peehaps and I mean this in a complimentary way, you are just too attractive to be hidden! Anyway thanks for this post.
- @geniv_cd That makes sense Genevieve. I think the problem is that this facial recognition software is much better at detecting your face compared to someone seeing you in person. I’d be curious to find out what you find if you post your face on this PimEyes website
@yestothedress thank you for the information. My phone doesn’t recognize me when dressed so i wondered if the pimeyes would find me like it did you. Nada. Didn’t find any pictures of me. Which I was surprised to see. I have plenty of FB photos on line. I wonder if FB doesn’t allow the software to reach out to FB
Update….. my search results have a statement they don’t go to social media for the search.
@jdj wow that’s surprising to me, Janet, but it’s great that the software doesn’t recognize you. Maybe Facebook does prevent it from doing that.
@yestothedress Wow thank you for posting this. I just did the same and it did not find me here phewww. At least I know If I have to hide from the government River is my Go to lol.. Cheers RC
@river wow that’s really interesting river. I was recognized so quickly on that PimEyes site that I thought it was all powerful. Apparently not and that’s a good thing.
@yestothedress I only had one picture in public photos. and I deleted anyway because of this possibility. my face was partially obstructed so that may be why but im glad this confirmed my private gallery is not visible as claimed. Cheers RC
@river The government has much better stuff than what the public has. I used he have a pass into a restricted military base that used it for entrance. They would recognize all four of us in an SUV without us even stopping.
@chrissie1977 Thats ok unless Im running for office or break the law the government is not going to be looking for me lol.. as long as my friends and family cant do it !! but then my siblings work for the government ahh bugger lol.. Cheers RC
@yestothedress - thanks for posting. Good to know. And yes, like you, I think it would almost be a relief to be outed.
Yes, facial recognition software has gotten quite sophisticated. Anyone with a biometric passport has probably seen its use at major airports in the US and UK. In the UK, it's even possible to enter the country without seeing a Border Force officer. A similar system is being tested in the US. It won't be long before facial recognition is in use everywhere.
Obviously, this is something to consider if you are closeted. You can reduce your risk on CDH by not posting any photos. Or you can post them to your private gallery only.
Personally, I'm not at risk. I'm out everywhere. I've been fingerprinted and photographed for government issued IDs. And I realize I'm the exception here.
/LK
@yestothedress Just when I think I’ll take a break from being such a “chatty Cathy” here on CDH along comes another juicy topic. Curse you CDH!🥰
First, let me say CDH does do a GREAT job of protecting privacy to the limits that they can. I have yet to post a public pic on here. This is the only social media I participate in at all. When I was a “Featured Member” last week. I saw my profile on the right hand side of my iPad as I do all the FM’s. But I was logged into the site too. I tested it by logging out, because you can see the FM’s as a visitor too. Sure enough- there they were. But not me. I was impressed, you gotta love CDH for having it so dialed in as to a girls preferences. They really have our backs to the extend that they can.
To that point, I DO post a lot of pics to private photos. Because they’re private for members only. I figure if I’m outed by anyone my response is built in - “Let’s see, you saw me on a crossdresser web site that you had to join because you’re interested in seeing crossdressers. And you think that’s a picture of me? Let’s say it is. Pretty cute huh? Got any of yourself as well?” In other words, privacy only extends so far as we all know in today’s world. Anyone can screen shot anything and who knows where it goes after that.
In my retirement that I enjoy now, all my friends are all of the “bro-culture” type as we play sports together and socialize through a variety of community events. There has to be some closeted gals here due to the size of the place, but I’ll probably never find them. (and probably don’t want to.) So I really don’t want to be “outed in my little fishbowl” as such. But say I go to Keystone in March. What about group pics? Girls will post them. I may be in some. (I hope to be in some🥰) I’m not going to be Grace’s bodyguard 24/7. (She’s certainly not paying me enough for that🤣) It’s definitely a remote possiblility someone somewhere could see it and think…that sure looks a lot like….so and so… But it’s VERY remote at best.
Mona, I’m actually surprised to hear you say you’re completely closeted. You’re out there girl! You have the portfolio of a crossdresser model…(and a darn good looking one I might add🥰) But I can relate to your statement of being “outed sooner or later”. Part of this whole escapade is there’s a certain amount of risk that gets your adrenaline flowing each dressing session. I like to think I’m making progress as I go, so that leads to thoughts of, hey, maybe I’ll take a ride somewhere. My wife has even offered this…(what’s SHE up to?). It’s exciting to speculate about.
I’m sure we closeted types have imagined “worst case scenarios” in case of our public exposure. It’s a lot less for me now as a retired, no longer relevant to the rat race, senior crossdresser. Public or private, being discovered wouldn’t alter my current lifestyle. If it were to happen I imagine my response to the person would be: “So?” But it’s my preference to remain private.
Thanks Mona for posting this timely topic. With AI coming on strong there’ll be more and more of this type of thing. The upside is I think it makes deniability even more plausible. If one really wants to remain hidden just “deny, deny, deny.” You can always respond “AI can make anyone look like anyone” It’s truer than ever today.
See there? Just a short concise response for this topic today☺️
GP
@yestothedress I occasionally will google my handle to see what comes up. On one occasion a picture from this site came up. That gave me pause. I have grown far more cautious about posting pics as a result.
Thanks for the tip on PimEyes!
@yestothedress - it's not unknown for me to be mistaken for other people in everyday life. Just the other week I walked into a building and the security guard said, "Hey, you look like that....". Sonwe do all have our look alikes.
Thank you Mona, it is scary. My thought is that none of my friends or family would believe that was me in those fem photos and would likely just discount the whole facial recognition software as not working too well. But I just hope I’m right, being outed would be awful.
@jennconn Agree JC. The good news is that with today’s technology it seems we can debate it’s authenticity til the cows come home. How many news stories do you see where they have video evidence of something that’s plain as day and yet the culprits still manage to wriggle out of harms way. Only every single day IMHO. “No, that’s not me there robbing the bank. Just keep on denying and people will never be totally certain.
One more thing Mona, I wouldn’t load any more photos of your male self out there on these sites, or opt out, I think you are actually supplying more information unintentionally to be discovered.
@jennconn Totally! Every time I “opt out” of anything my emails suddenly start doubling and tripling. I think opting out is the new joining in. Has been for awhile. I don’t trust it in the least.
@gracepal There are rules under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that will curb most of that from happening.
Do some unscrupulous sites sell customer data anyway? I would bet on it.
Thank you for your work on this issue. I don't have the mind for tech skills especially at the level needed today, and all I can do is be careful about it. There may be dozens of FR websites.
Now you've got me thinking about the progress and ongoing evolution of FR and about times when I will attend a CD meetup and the parking lot cameras, or government cameras on the street, or cameras inside the hotel. Maybe all those recordings are retained forever, since memory capacity isn't an issue anymore like it was in the early 1980s when I took a couple years of COBOL & FORTRAN.
It seems to boil down to whether someone will copy your picture from the staff directory (or the portrait on her nightstand) and enter that rather than your name. Let's face it, some people have a lot of time on their hands.
We can hope that along with these technologies, understanding and acceptance of our lifestyle will also grow and evolve throughout civilization.
Dani
Scary yes, but its akin to the early photo manipulation tactics that some people used to fake situations or expose people.
You could come up with a CGI of anyone and anything. It's just a lazy and cheap way of saying i was there when I wasn't.
I still think most people we know wouldn't recognize us enfem regardless of what medium they see us in.
I recall a movie called Paper Man. This group of computer geeks created a man on the computer and gave him a profile, credit rating and then they use his credit cards to buy items for themselves. Only to find that he really did exist and came after them with a vengeance.
So beware and still be your girly best self's!
Fran 🥰
@gafran So true Fran. My wife and I have discussed this possibility of being outed and I always say: “Nobody will recognize me, my skills are too damn good!” To which she replies: “A. No they’re not. B. You have a really recognizable face.” I love the honesty!
Fran raises a good point that makes me wonder about something. Isn't it true that one can, with photo shop, feminize a guy's face, put a wig on him, add the makeup, etc?
@danikiss22 Totally true. Lots of websites allow you to do this depending on what they’re trying to sell you. Another good reason that if you’re outed and you don’t want to be, just deny, say it’s probably photoshopped, etc. As soon as you confirm, you’re out. Make sure it’s what you want.
@danikiss22 As a LRC/PS user for several years, with AI making anyone opposite sex is no problem.
It is quite scary as no matter what the federal or national laws are about using images for the good or national safety the nefarious and unlawful will take advantage.
A salutary warning Mona.
Not long ago one of our lady friends said she was going to stop dressing for fear of being found out thru facial recognition software. She is a local politician and was certain getting found out would ruin her career. Seems like such an insignificant thing compared to the behavior of other public figures nowadays.
@elguapo Elaine you just brought up why I never ran for a political office. It was suggested years ago and I was tempted. But even back then I thought, some ex-girlfriend who knows of my peccadillos would come forward and upset the whole apple cart. I just wasn’t going to go there. But today, who knows, might be a positive🥰
Don't know whether to be happy or sad. I've just gone through some of my 25,000+ photographs looking for pictures of me. I suppose it's one of the downsides of being a photographer, but I couldn't find any of me at all. I have some that were taken of me en femme in the last year ('cos that's what we cross-dressers do!) but putting one of them on the Pimeyes site just finds more pictures of me en femme that I posted here on CDH. It was hardly a fair test really 🙂
I don't really worry about things like this since, as discussed in other threads of this nature, the eyes-in-the-sky are everywhere anyway.
I think if you are in a position where being seen on a CD site would be catastrophic—politician, judge, doctor, or anyone in the public eye—then assuming that someone would then actually search for you, yes, that might be awkward. I think it unlikely that someone would do a search for just someone they know to see if they were into 'abnormal' things.
Anyone can find anything on the internet if they choose, it's whether or not they choose to look in the first place and where most people are concerned, they probably won't.
@rebeccabaxter Becca, this is why I don’t do searches. If I never search, I’ll never find any pics of me. So, good.
That said, I’m sure if I did do a search and found nothing my reaction would be: “No pictures of Grace? What the he** is wrong with people???”
We curmudgeons. There’s no pleasing us🤣
I just wanted to do one more reply to those of you who have supplied a photo to the web site mentioned in the post. Disclaimer though, I’m not a computer guru, but I am a logical thinker. This site and I’m sure others is owned by a foreign nefarious company that seems to collect data on people that use its site. So, by posting pictures on their site, you’ve in effect increased your probability of a match to whatever other photos you have. There’s data in these photos that tell where it was taken, what day it was taken and with what type of camera or phone. All that information is stripped out of photos on CDH. The reason that you get a message that says “ this may take a second” here is that they are trying to keep the bots out of this site that want to gather information.
so, please don’t post anything to these sites, you are just feeding new information to them that can be used who knows how or who knows where. I know it’s tempting, but don’t do it. That’s my 2 cents.
@jennconn I like a logical thinking girl. Makes total sense. Awareness of what sites you’re on is critical.
@jennconn While I don't doubt you are correct, even though the site says it uses one's data responsibly (and of course, we all believe that), I would have thought that the amount of (number of, perhaps?) data extracted from a few photographs pales into insignificant with the data collected by the likes of FB, Amazon, X, Tiktok, et al.
I did put a couple of pictures into Pimeyes but probably won't bother again; didn't find it that interesting really. As for the other, aforementioned, platforms, I am not on any of them but I'll bet a lot of other organisations know about me anyway.
Facial recognition software is becoming. More and more ubiquitous and advanced. With AI it will become even more so, and it pulls from more ampnd more sites. Even if you don't post to social media sites others do, so a group photo you are in may get posted to Facebook or such sites and that then can lead to other pictures of you en femme or not. The only way to really avoid this is to never post an en femme picture anywhere on anysite. Even if deleted, they are still on the web somewhere and can potentiallu pop up in some pretty random search someone may do for some totally other reason like ask AI who are the people in this group photo from 20 years ago.
I have just accepted the fact that sooner or later somebody I know will come across an en femme picture of me totally unintentionally. Oh well!
@jjandme Something interesting about your post JJ is that I’ve seen pics of girls here on CDH and thought - “that sure resembles…so and so…” It’s sent me to the profile of the person for her vital stats more than once since I’ve been here. And of course anyone can put whatever they want in those as well. There's always going to be some level of risk in anything.
Always remember that AI can ID a person regardless of wigs and make-up, even glasses. It works by analyzing the structure of your face.
I had a couple of close-up pictures of me at our Pride parade, but I took them down. If /when ever post any more pictures, I will be faceless, maybe headless. Even if you blur your facial area, authorities can de-blur whatever you did. That was how they IDed a child-sex criminal in Thailand, maybe 10 years ago now.
If I show up headless on CDH, don't be concerned, I should still be alive.
Thanks Mona!! What a wake up call.
Alice
Thank you Mona for your heads up reminder to those of us who try to keep our femme side within our property and our heads planted firmly in the sand. I don't think I've ever shared any facial pics but may have in the past. Also "lost" a personal laptop a few years ago that I know had full images of me dressed. Oh, well...
Many yeas ago I went for a lunch and then shopping with my group. I invited my (then wife, now ex) along for the shopping. We took photos at the diner, and afterwards at the woman's home (she ran a transformation business and organized the outing) showing what we bought. The photos were posted to our meetup site.
Some time later my wife's sister managed to find the photo. I'm guessing she did an image search (back in the early days) and found the picture of my wife, and then recognized me by proximity. While she did not approve, she only told her and never me.
I normally wear a wig the same color as my hair, slightly longer and fuller, so I don't think it changes my face to be unrecognizable. I normally go for a walk en femme around my block, on streets with no sidewalks, and sometimes little to no shoulder (the edges have decayed even the white edge lines). Well my boss's boss lives effectively on the same street as me, and although I don't go in that direction, he will sometimes drive towards where I walk. Last year I got ill and was unable to do a lot of walking. When I started up again last spring, he stopped to talk to me and tell me it was good to see me walking again. My relationship at work has not been affected, but I was outed again.
I have occasionally gone out en femme with one adult daughter who lives with me. Sure I risk getting recognized by being with her, especially since we already look very much alike even when I'm not en femme.
So I'm really not overly concerned if a person or software recognizes me. Sure, there are people I would prefer not to tell, but I'm not going to fret if people find out. I have to live my life, and if going out en femme is part of it, it's what I choose (or feel I need) to do. It's not illegal, and if others don't like it, it's not their life.
@alison-anderson This is a good post Alison, giving us examples of outings that turn out to be “no big deal”. Because really, why would they be? We build it up in our minds then nothing happens. Who cares?
I had to laugh at your wife’s sister discovering a photo of you and “not approving”. Shame on you for not submitting all your dressed photos to her for “approval”. Please….
@alison-anderson Excellent story Alison. While I would have mortified to be outed by anyone other than my wife years back, I now just don't care all that much. Even though I don't advertise my feminity, I don't worry about who might know or guess.
