Microsoft Announces New PhotoDNA Cloud Service To Protect Children Online

Microsoft PhotoDNA technology has already helped detect millions of illegal photos on the Internet. More than 70 companies including Facebook and Twitter are already using it. But the on-premise version required time, money and technical expertise to get it up and running and keep it up-to-date. Now, Microsoft has launched a free service that helps identify and remove these photos, is now available in the cloud. The new PhotoDNA Cloud Service takes away those potential hurdles for smaller companies and other organizations that want to give users the freedom to upload content while ensuring the integrity of their platforms.

“Finding these known child sex abuse images in that huge universe is like finding a needle in a haystack,” says Courtney Gregoire, a senior attorney at Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit. “We needed an easier, more scalable way to identify and detect these worst of the worst images … and that’s how the concept for PhotoDNA in the cloud was born.”

While it was possible to identify illegal images if they were exact matches of known sexual abuse photos, perpetrators could keep the photos from being detected by changing them slightly — adjusting the size or making a small mark on them, for example.

Companies and organizations can learn how to access these free tools to help protect their businesses and curb the spread of child sexual abuse images on the PhotoDNA Cloud Service site.

Read more about it here.