Facebook nude photo trial scotched

The eSafety Commissioner has called off a Facebook trial in which users would send the network naked photos of themselves.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in Paris this week. Picture: AFP

The Office of the eSafety Commissioner has called off a Facebook trial in which Australian users would send naked photos of themselves to the social network in a bid to stop ­revenge porn.

The eSafety Commissioner stepped in before a trial was due to begin in coming weeks over concerns about whether nude photos could find their way into the hands of third parties in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data-leaks scandal.

The idea was that if Facebook users aged 18 and over feared that intimate photos of themselves could be shared by someone else, the network could block the ­images before they appeared on ­Facebook, Instagram or Messenger. It is understood the scheme could still go live in Australia if a pilot program in Canada, Britain and the US proves successful.

The system creates and stores unique digital signatures formed from bytes of data, or hashes, that allow Facebook to identify future uploads of the image to prevent copies being shared by disgruntled former partners.

Revenge porn is a growing problem in Australia, with studies by the eSafety Commissioner suggesting one in five women aged 18 to 45 might have been victims of image-based abuse.

A spokeswoman for the eSafety Commissioner confirmed the ­initiative had been put on ice indefinitely amid fears of a significant public outcry after the personal data of 311,129 Australians was improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica, a market research firm tied to Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign.

“Facebook received some feedback about the proposed pilot, which we understand they are considering before going live,” a spokeswoman said in a statement sent to The Australian. “We’ve already had some people express interest in participating in the voluntary pilot once it goes live.”

Facebook’s global head of safety, Antigone Davis, tried to quell privacy safety fears, saying nude photos would be seen by only a “handful of specifically trained members of our community operations safety team”.

“We store the hashes so any time someone tries to upload an image with the same fingerprint, we can block it from appearing on Facebook, Instagram or Messenger,” Ms Davis said.

Meanwhile, Facebook is testing a proactive reporting tool in ­partnership with the eSafety ­Commissioner.

People can report if their intimate images have been shared without their consent, and Facebook will remove each image and create a hash to prevent further sharing.

This comes after The Australian last year obtained confidential internal Facebook documents showing how the company could target ads at depressed children. Facebook apologised, opened an investigation and said it would discipline senior staff.

The president of the European parliament was criticised this week for allowing Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg to dodge MEPs’ difficult questions.

The 34-year-old, who is worth $US73 billion ($97bn), delivered a monologue, choosing the points he wanted to address, while taking yes-or-no questions on notice.