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05 March 2021 The Guarantor for the Protection of Personal Data will make available, on its website, a reporting channel dedicated to people who fear that their intimate images may be disseminated on Facebook or Instagram and counteract the so-called

'revenge porn'

.

The initiative is part of the Facebook pilot program, activated last year in Italy thanks to the collaboration with the non-profit association for social promotion PermessoNegato.



Although still experimental, it was designed to help potential victims prevent their intimate photographs or videos from being posted on Facebook and Instagram without their consent.

As part of this project, people over 18 in Italy who fear that their intimate images may be shared, through PermessoNegato or, from next week, also the

Privacy Guarantor on the dedicated page on the site

 will be helped to securely submit those photos or videos. to the social network. 



Facebook will create a

unique

digital signature

of the reported content (a

hash

with numerical values) before destroying it and will block possible attempts to publish it on its platforms.

In cases, however, in which intimate images or videos have already been shared without consent, it is possible to make a report on Facebook or Instagram: social networks are able to minimize the damage by using the same combination of fingerprints and technology. matching photos so that they are not yet shared.



How a hash works

Facebook technology allows the creation of a unique digital signature or

hash

that

numerically encodes the image or video

so that it is not recognizable to the naked eye.

Once created, the signature can be compared with those of other videos and images to find matches.

An image or video, once reduced in hash format, can no longer redirect to the person's profile on Facebook or Instagram, or to other personal information.

The hashes of these images and videos are added to the Media Match Service database, which can only be accessed by a small handful of Facebook team members.

Uploaded images and videos will be automatically destroyed after seven days.



Artificial Intelligence Removal

Facebook uses machine learning technologies and artificial intelligence to proactively detect nude images or videos that are shared without permission on platforms.

According to the social network, in the fourth quarter of 2020 alone,

28 million

nude

images

and sexual acts of adults

were identified and removed

, in 98.1% of cases even before they were reported by anyone.