14 DAY TRIAL // Last week, Microsoft released a website called how-old.net that was designed as an internal test by a couple of company developers who were trying to see if machine learning can be used to determine the age of someone shown in an uploaded photo.
Basically, users were allowed to upload a photo with their face and let the website try to guess their age, so it was only a matter of time until someone actually expressed their privacy concerns online to stir up quite a craze among those who were using the service.
In other words, a single complaint was enough to make everyone wonder whether Microsoft was storing uploaded photos or not, because, truth be told, the website went viral and millions of users tried it in just a few days. So the opportunity to collect millions of photos was there.
Only that Microsoft says that it doesn't store any uploaded photos, simply because it doesn't need them. And that's true. Many of the photos that were uploaded on how-old.net are already online, and Bing knows where to find them, so why collect any additional images?
Worrying terms of service
A paragraph in the terms of service, however, is raising additional questions.
“By posting, uploading, inputting, providing, or submitting your Submission, you are granting Microsoft, its affiliated companies, and necessary sublicensees permission to use your Submission in connection with the operation of their Internet businesses (including, without limitation, all Microsoft services), including, without limitation, the license rights to: copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, translate, and reformat your Submission.”
In an update posted today, Microsoft says that these terms of service are actually borrowed from Microsoft Azure, and developers are allowed to change them as they like for the projects they create.
In this case, how-old.net doesn't keep any of your photos, the company explained, adding that “they are discarded from memory once we guess.”
“We don't store photos, we don't share them and we only use them to guess your age and gender,” it concluded.
So here you are, how-old.net is perfectly secure, so if you want to find out how old you actually look, the service is still up and running and it's becoming an Internet sensation quite fast.