path: root/site/content/pages/about/news.md

------------

status: published
title: MegaPixels News, Press and Recent Events
desc: MegaPixels News, Press and Recent Events
slug: news
cssclass: about
published: 2018-12-04
updated: 2018-12-04
authors: Adam Harvey
 
------------
 
# News

<section class="about-menu">
<ul>
<li><a href="/about/">About</a></li>
<li><a class="current" href="/about/news/">News</a></li>
<li><a href="/about/attribution/">Attribution</a></li>
<li><a href="/about/legal/">Legal / Privacy</a></li>
</ul>
</section>


Since launching MegaPixels in April 2019, several of the datasets mentioned have disappeared and one surveillance workshop was canceled (then uncanceled). Below is a timeline of events, responses, reactions, and press:


##### July 2019

- New York Times writes about MegaPixels and how "[Facial Recognition Tech Is Growing Stronger, Thanks to Your Face](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/13/technology/databases-faces-facial-recognition-technology.html)" 

##### June 2019

- June 28: Munich Security Conference launches [Transational Security Report](https://tsr.securityconference.de/) including data from the MegaPixels project on illicit data flows
- June 26: The Atlantic writes about image training datasets "in the wild" and research ethics: [Universities Record Students on Campuses for Research](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/06/universities-record-students-campuses-research/592537/) by Sidney Fussell
- June 24: Les Echos (FR) writes about MS Celeb dataset and [Le mariage explosif de nos données et de l'IA](https://www.lesechos.fr/tech-medias/intelligence-artificielle/le-mariage-explosif-de-nos-donnees-et-de-lia-1031813) (The explosive combination of our data and AI)
- June 22: La Stampa (Italy) [writes about Microsoft's removal of the MS Celeb dataset](https://www.lastampa.it/2019/06/22/tecnologia/microsoft-ha-cancellato-il-suo-database-per-il-riconoscimento-facciale-PWwLGmpO1fKQdykMZVBd9H/pagina.html)
- June 15: De Tijd (Belgium) [writes about Brainwash head dataset](https://www.tijd.be/dossier/legrandinconnu/brainwash/10136670.html)
- June 13: [Creator of Duke MTMC dataset apologizes to students recorded for surveillance research](https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2019/06/duke-university-video-analysis-research-at-duke-carlo-tomasi) to student body and university: "I take full responsibility for my mistakes, and I apologize to all people who were recorded and to Duke for their consequences"
- Jun 12: Duke Chronicle, Duke University's student paper, investigates Duke MTMC dataset, confirms it violated IRB: ["A Duke study recorded thousands of students’ faces. Now they’re being used all over the world"](https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2019/06/duke-university-facial-recognition-data-set-study-surveillance-video-students-china-uyghur)
- June 7: Additional coverage of FT's story by [BBC](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48555149), [Spiegel.de](https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/microsoft-gesichtserkennung-datenbank-mit-zehn-millionen-fotos-geloescht-a-1271221.html), [IrishTimes](https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/microsoft-quietly-deletes-largest-public-face-recognition-data-set-1.3916825), and [Gizmodo](https://gizmodo.com/microsoft-quietly-pulls-its-database-of-100-000-faces-u-1835296212)
- June 6: Financial Times covers the abrupt disappearance of four facial recognition datasets: [Microsoft quietly deletes largest public face recognition data set](https://www.ft.com/content/7d3e0d6a-87a0-11e9-a028-86cea8523dc2) by Madhumita Murgia
- June 2: A person tracking surveillance workshop at CVPR ([reid-mct.github.io/2019](https://reid-mct.github.io/2019/)) has been canceled due to the [Duke MTMC dataset](/datasets/duke_mtmc) no longer being available: "Due to some unforeseen circumstances, the test data has not been available. The multi-target multi-camera tracking and person re-identification challenge is canceled. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused."
- June 2: The [Duke MTMC dataset](/datasets/duke_mtmc) website ([vision.cs.duke.edu/DukeMTMC](http://vision.cs.duke.edu/DukeMTMC)) has abruptly gone blank. An archive from April 18 is still available on the Wayback Machine ([web.archive.org/web/20190418085103/http://vision.cs.duke.edu/DukeMTMC/](https://web.archive.org/web/20190418085103/http://vision.cs.duke.edu/DukeMTMC/))
- June 1: The [Brainwash](/datasets/brainwash) face/head dataset has been taken down by its author at [exhibits.stanford.edu/data/catalog/sx925dc9385](https://exhibits.stanford.edu/data/catalog/sx925dc9385). "This data was removed from access at the request of the depositor."
- June 1: The [UCCS dataset page](/dataset/uccs) has been updated with a response from the author to clarify that he did not provide any face data to government agencies. Funding was for technology transfer. This site never mentioned that he did provide data to government agencies, only that his work benefited their objectives.

##### May 2019

- May 31: Semantic Scholar appears to be censoring citations used in this project. Two of the citations linking the [Brainwash](/datasets/brainwash) dataset to research from the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) in China have disabled. [NUDT citation 1](https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/A-Replacement-Algorithm-of-Non-Maximum-Suppression-Zhao-Wang/591a4bfa6380c9fcd5f3ae690e3ac5c09b7bf37b), [NUDT citation 2](https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Localized-region-context-and-object-feature-fusion-Li-Dou/b02d31c640b0a31fb18c4f170d841d8e21ffb66c), and the [original paper](https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/End-to-End-People-Detection-in-Crowded-Scenes-Stewart-Andriluka/1bd1645a629f1b612960ab9bba276afd4cf7c666) show that the NUDT citation has been censored (see the references section on Semantic Scholar pages)
- May 28: The [Microsoft Celeb](/datasets/msceleb) (MS-Celeb-1M) face dataset website is now 404 and all the download links were deactivated. It appears that someone at Microsoft Research has shuttered access to the MS Celeb dataset. Yet it remains available, as of writing this, on [Imperial College London's website](https://ibug.doc.ic.ac.uk/resources/lightweight-face-recognition-challenge-workshop/) and on <https://msropendata.com/datasets/98fdfc70-85ee-5288-a69f-d859bbe9c737>
- May 29, 2019: Stories about the [UnConstrained College Students Dataset](/datasets/uccs) appeared on [Engadget](https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/28/uccs-facial-recognition-study-students/), [AP News](https://www.apnews.com/003bec760eae4d8085265af9e5175254), [New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2019/05/28/us/ap-us-facial-recognition.html), [US News](https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/colorado/articles/2019-05-28/colorado-campus-photographed-for-facial-recognition-research), [Daily Dot](https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/college-students-secret-face-recognition-project/), [Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/colorado-students-photographed-for-facial-recognition-study/2019/05/28/0838be48-8165-11e9-b585-e36b16a531aa_story.html), [MSN](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/colorado-students-unknowingly-photographed-for-facial-recognition-study/ar-AAC2Zkv), [International Association of Privacy Professionals](https://iapp.org/news/a/students-photographed-for-facial-recognition-study/), [The Denver Channel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61NPPD6Mhys), [Daily Mail](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7079865/Spy-cameras-imaged-1-700-unwitting-subjects-facial-recognition-study-funded-U-S-government.html), [New York Post](https://nypost.com/2019/05/29/college-students-secretly-photographed-for-facial-recognition-study/), [Yahoo! News](https://news.yahoo.com/colorado-students-photographed-facial-recognition-162127139.html)
- May 27, 2019: Denver Post writes about the UCCS dataset: [CU Colorado Springs students secretly photographed for government-backed facial-recognition research](https://www.denverpost.com/2019/05/27/cu-colorado-springs-facial-recognition-research/)
- May 22, 2019: Interview with CS Indy about the UCCS dataset [UCCS secretly photographed students to advance facial recognition technology](https://www.csindy.com/coloradosprings/uccs-secretly-photographed-students-to-advance-facial-recognition-technology/Content?oid=19664437) by J. Adrian Stanley

##### April 2019

- April 20: Washington Post Editorial Board responds to Financial Times article based on data surfaced in MegaPixels project: [Opinion | Microsoft worked with a Chinese military university on AI. Does that make sense?](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/microsoft-worked-with-a-chinese-military-university-on-ai-does-that-make-sense/2019/04/21/a0fb82c6-5d59-11e9-842d-7d3ed7eb3957_story.html)
- April 19: Financial Times feature on MegaPixels project: [Who's Using Your Face](https://www.ft.com/content/cf19b956-60a2-11e9-b285-3acd5d43599e) by Madhumita Murgia
- April 19: MegaPixels data cited by report in Financial Times: [Western AI researchers partnered with Chinese surveillance firm](https://www.ft.com/content/41be9878-61d9-11e9-b285-3acd5d43599e) by Madhumita Murgia
- April 10: [Microsoft worked with Chinese military university on artificial intelligence](https://www.ft.com/content/9378e7ee-5ae6-11e9-9dde-7aedca0a081a) based on data surfaced in [MS Celeb dataset](/datasets/msceleb)

##### 2018

- Aug 22: HRT Transgender dataset on Verge.com: [Transgender YouTubers had their videos grabbed to train facial recognition software](https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/22/16180080/transgender-youtubers-ai-facial-recognition-dataset) by James Vincent