SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR MEDIA PRIVACY

• US 20190035059A1
• Filed: 09/27/2018
• Published: 01/31/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 07/02/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Privowny, Inc. (Assurant Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Privowny, Inc. (Assurant Incorporated)
• Inventors: Le Jouan, Herve
• Granted Patent: US 11,379,953 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/51 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/60 Editing figures and text; Combining figures or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/70 Denoising; Smoothing
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 2201/10 Recognition assisted with metadata
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/16 Human faces, e.g. facial parts, sketches or expressions

Abstract

A system comprises a picture and metadata captured by a content capture system; a recognizable characteristic datastore configured to store recognizable characteristics of different users; a module configured to identify a time and a location associated with the picture based on the metadata, and to identify one or more potential target systems within a predetermined range of the location at the time; a characteristic recognition module configured to retrieve the recognizable characteristics of one or more potential users associated with the potential target systems, and evaluate whether the picture includes one or more representations of at least one actual target user from the potential users based on the recognizable characteristics of the potential users; a distortion module configured to distort a feature of the representations of the least one actual target user in response to the determination; a communication module configured to communicate the distorted picture to a computer network.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a recognizable characteristic datastore configured to store recognizable characteristics of a plurality of target users, the recognizable characteristics of each respective target user of the plurality of target users capable of assisting in identifying captured representations of the respective target user in pictures, each respective target user of the plurality of target users associated with a respective mobile device;

a datastore configured to store user preferences of each respective target user of the plurality of target users, the user preferences defining when the respective target user of the plurality of target users wishes to distort or wishes not to distort captured representations of the respective target user of the plurality of target users in pictures;

a location identification module configured to capture a target location of each respective mobile device associated with each respective target user of the plurality of target users at a plurality of target times in a day;

a module configured to;

receive a particular picture and associated metadata captured by a content capture system, the associated metadata including a picture time when the particular picture was taken and a picture location where the particular picture was taken, the particular picture possibly including a particular captured representation of a particular target user, the particular target user having a particular mobile device, the particular target user having a particular user preference to have particular captured representations of the particular target user distorted,

identify from the associated metadata the picture time when the particular picture was taken and the picture location where the particular picture was taken, and

determine based on the particular target location of the particular mobile device associated with the particular target user at or near the picture time to identify whether the particular mobile device was at or near the picture location at or near the picture time to determine whether the particular target user might have been captured in the particular picture;

a characteristic recognition module configured to;

retrieve the particular recognizable characteristics of the particular target user, and

evaluate the particular picture to try to identify any particular captured representation of the particular target user in the particular picture, by searching the particular picture for the particular recognizable characteristics of the particular target user;

a distortion module configured to initiate a process to distort at least a portion of the particular captured representation of the particular target user to generate a distorted picture; and

a communication module configured to communicate at least a portion of the distorted picture to a computer network.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the recognizable characteristics comprises one or more images.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the recognizable characteristics is derived from one or more images.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the recognizable characteristics comprises a wearable item.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the communication module is further configured to communicate the at least a portion of the distorted picture to the content capture system.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least a portion of the captured representation that is distorted comprises one or more facial features.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising a profile generation module configured to determine distortion preferences for the particular target user, wherein the distortion module configured to distort the at least a portion of the particular captured representation comprises the distortion module configured to distort the at least a portion of the particular captured representation based on the distortion preferences.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the distortion module configured to distort the at least a portion of the particular captured representation comprises the distortion module configured to blur the at least a portion of the particular captured representation.

9. A method, comprising:

storing recognizable characteristics of a plurality of target users, the recognizable characteristics of each respective target user of the plurality of target users capable of assisting in identifying captured representations of the respective target user in pictures, each respective target user of the plurality of target users associated with a respective mobile device;

storing user preferences of each respective target user of the plurality of target users, the user preferences defining when the respective target user of the plurality of target users wishes to distort or wishes not to distort captured representations of the respective target user of the plurality of target users in pictures;

capturing a target location of each respective mobile device associated with each respective target user of the plurality of target users at a plurality of target times in a day;

receiving a particular picture and associated metadata captured by a content capture system, the associated metadata including a picture time when the particular picture was taken and a picture location where the particular picture was taken, the particular picture possibly including a particular captured representation of a particular target user, the particular target user having a particular mobile device, the particular target user having a particular user preference to have particular captured representations of the particular target user distorted;

identifying from the associated metadata the picture time when the particular picture was taken and the picture location where the particular picture was taken;

determining based on the particular target location of the particular mobile device associated with the particular target user at or near the picture time to identify whether the particular mobile device was at or near the picture location at or near the picture time to determine whether the particular target user might have been captured in the particular picture;

retrieving the particular recognizable characteristics of the particular target user;

evaluating the particular picture to try to identify any particular captured representation of the particular target user in the particular picture, by searching the particular picture for the particular recognizable characteristics of the particular target user;

initiating a process to distort at least a portion of the particular captured representation of the particular target user to generate a distorted picture; and

communicating at least a portion of the distorted picture to a computer network.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein at least one of the recognizable characteristics comprises one or more images.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein at least one of the recognizable characteristics is derived from one or more images.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein at least one of the recognizable characteristics comprises a wearable item.

13. The method of claim 9, further comprising providing the at least a portion of the distorted picture to the content capture system.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein the at least a portion of the particular captured representation that is distorted comprises one or more facial features.

15. The method of claim 9, further comprising determining distortion preferences for the particular target user, wherein the distorting the at least a portion of the particular captured representation comprises distorting the at least a portion of the particular captured representation based on the distortion preferences.

16. The method of claim 9, wherein the distorting the at least a portion of the particular captured representation comprises blurring the at least a portion of the particular captured representation.

17. A system, comprising:

means for storing recognizable characteristics of a plurality of target users, the recognizable characteristics of each respective target user of the plurality of target users capable of assisting in identifying captured representations of the respective target user in pictures, each respective target user of the plurality of target users associated with a respective mobile device;

means for storing user preferences of each respective target user of the plurality of target users, the user preferences defining when the respective target user of the plurality of target users wishes to distort or wishes not to distort captured representations of the respective target user of the plurality of target users in pictures;

means for capturing a target location of each respective mobile device associated with each respective target user of the plurality of target users at a plurality of target times in a day;

means for receiving a particular picture and associated metadata captured by a content capture system, the associated metadata including a picture time when the particular picture was taken and a picture location where the particular picture was taken, the particular picture possibly including a particular captured representation of a particular target user, the particular target user having a particular mobile device, the particular target user having a particular user preference to have particular captured representations of the particular target user distorted;

means for identifying from the associated metadata the picture time when the particular picture was taken and the picture location where the particular picture was taken;

means for determining based on the particular target location of the particular mobile device associated with the particular target user at or near the picture time to identify whether the particular mobile device was at or near the picture location at or near the picture time to determine whether the particular target user might have been captured in the particular picture;

means for retrieving the particular recognizable characteristics of the particular target user;

means for evaluating the particular picture to try to identify any particular captured representation of the particular target user in the particular picture, by searching the particular picture for the particular recognizable characteristics of the particular target user;

means for initiating a process to distort at least a portion of the particular captured representation of the particular target user to generate a distorted picture; and

means for communicating at least a portion of the distorted picture to a computer network.

18. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising executable instructions, the executable instructions being executable by a processor to perform a method, the method comprising:

storing recognizable characteristics of a plurality of target users, the recognizable characteristics of each respective target user of the plurality of target users capable of assisting in identifying captured representations of the respective target user in pictures, each respective target user of the plurality of target users associated with a respective mobile device;

storing user preferences of each respective target user of the plurality of target users, the user preferences defining when the respective target user of the plurality of target users wishes to distort or wishes not to distort captured representations of the respective target user of the plurality of target users in pictures;

capturing a target location of each respective mobile device associated with each respective target user of the plurality of target users at a plurality of target times in a day;

receiving a particular picture and associated metadata captured by a content capture system, the associated metadata including a picture time when the particular picture was taken and a picture location where the particular picture was taken, the particular picture possibly including a particular captured representation of a particular target user, the particular target user having a particular mobile device, the particular target user having a particular user preference to have particular captured representations of the particular target user distorted;

identifying from the associated metadata the picture time when the particular picture was taken and the picture location where the particular picture was taken;

determining based on the particular target location of the particular mobile device associated with the particular target user at or near the picture time to identify whether the particular mobile device was at or near the picture location at or near the picture time to determine whether the particular target user might have been captured in the particular picture;

retrieving the particular recognizable characteristics of the particular target user;

evaluating the particular picture to try to identify any particular captured representation of the particular target user in the particular picture, by searching the particular picture for the particular recognizable characteristics of the particular target user;

initiating a process to distort at least a portion of the particular captured representation of the particular target user to generate a distorted picture; and

communicating at least a portion of the distorted picture to a computer network.