Free Facial Recognition Tool Can Track People on Social Media
Security researchers from Trustwave have released a new open-source tool that uses facial recognition technology to track targets across multiple social networks. The tool, called Social Mapper, automatically searches for people on eight platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, VKontakte, Weibo, and Douban, based on their names and photos.
“Collecting data online is a time-consuming process, and it usually starts with trying to find a person on various social networking sites,” the experts explained.
How Social Mapper Works
- Step 1: The tool creates a list of targets (consisting of names and images) based on the input data. The list can be provided via links in a CSV file, images in a folder, or through people registered on LinkedIn.
- Step 2: Once the targets are processed, Social Mapper automatically begins searching for people on social networks.
- Step 3: After the search is complete, Social Mapper generates reports, such as spreadsheets with links to profile pages from the target list, or a more visual HTML report that also includes photos.
According to the creators of the tool, they understand that their development could be used by malicious actors, but they still decided to make Social Mapper free and open for download.