Controlling privacy in a face recognition application

A computer program product for controlling privacy on a computer, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, wherein the computer readable storage medium is not a transitory signal per se, the program instructions executable by a computer to cause the computer to perform a method comprising:

• receiving, by the computer, an input including a face recognition query and a digital image of a face;
• identifying, by the computer, a target user associated with a facial signature in a database based at least in part on a statistical correlation between a detected facial signature in the digital image and one or more facial signatures in the database;
• extracting, by the computer, a profile of the target user from a profile database, wherein the profile comprises one or more privacy preferences;
• generating, by the computer, a customized profile of the target user, wherein the customized profile omits one or more elements of the profile of the target user based on the one or more privacy preferences and further based on a location of a sensor device capturing the digital image or location of a device associated with the target user;
• and
• transmitting the customized profile of the target user to a user device.

A computer system for controlling privacy on a computer, the computer system comprising:

• one or more computer processors;
• one or more computer-readable storage media;
• program instructions stored on the computer-readable storage media for execution by at least one of the one or more processors, the program instructions comprising instructions to:
• receive, by the computer, an input including a face recognition query and a digital image of a face;
• identify, by the computer, a target user associated with a facial signature in a database based at least in part on a statistical correlation between a detected facial signature in the digital image and one or more facial signatures in the database;
• extract, by the computer, a profile of the target user from a profile database, wherein the profile comprises one or more privacy preferences;
• generate, by the computer, a customized profile of the target user, wherein the customized profile omits one or more elements of the profile of the target user based on the one or more privacy preferences and further based on a location of a sensor device capturing the digital image or location of a device associated with the target user;
• and
• program instructions to transmit the customized profile of the target user to a user device.