Facial Recognition With Social Network Aiding

A computer-implemented method comprising:

• obtaining a query image that was submitted to an image-based search system by a requesting user;
• identifying people that match a face within the query image;
• for each person that is identified as matching the face within the query image, determining a level of social connectivity between the person and the requesting user that submitted the query image to the image-based search system;
• selecting one or more of the people that are identified as matching the face within the query image based on the level of social connectivity between each person and the requesting user that submitted the query image to the image-based search system;
• and
• providing a respective identifier of one or more of the selected people to the requesting user.

A system comprising:

• one or more computers and one or more storage devices storing instructions that are operable, when executed by the one or more computers, to cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:
• obtaining a query image that was submitted to an image-based search system by a requesting user;
• identifying people that match a face within the query image;
• for each person that is identified as matching the face within the query image, determining a level of social connectivity between the person and the requesting user that submitted the query image to the image-based search system;
• selecting one or more of the people that are identified as matching the face within the query image based on the level of social connectivity between each person and the requesting user that submitted the query image to the image-based search system;
• and
• providing a respective identifier of one or more of the selected people to the requesting user.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing software comprising instructions executable by one or more computers which, upon such execution, cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:

• obtaining a query image that was submitted to an image-based search system by a requesting user;
• identifying people that match a face within the query image;
• for each person that is identified as matching the face within the query image, determining a level of social connectivity between the person and the requesting user that submitted the query image to the image-based search system;
• selecting one or more of the people that are identified as matching the face within the query image based on the level of social connectivity between each person and the requesting user that submitted the query image to the image-based search system;
• and
• providing a respective identifier of one or more of the selected people to the requesting user.