How 9 facial recognition services handle images, disclose ownership, and more

Web-based facial recognition tools have become a core part of many investigators’ OSINT toolkit thanks to their accuracy and increased availability. But the potential for abuse has also made such services a source of concern and controversy. 

To help investigators decide whether to use a web-based facial recognition tool and which one to choose, Indicator sent a questionnaire to nine services.

Three services — Lenso.ai, ProFaceFinder.com and PimEyes.com — responded. A fourth, Faceagle.com, replied by email. For the remaining services, I gathered information from their websites’ privacy policy, terms and conditions, and FAQ, among other pages. I also examined the sites’ digital infrastructure and other publicly-available information. The goal was to identify who runs the services and how they handle uploaded images, along with other aspects.

Here are key findings about the services I examined:

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