Privacy and Audiovisual Content: Protecting Users as Big Multimedia Data Grows Bigger

This chapter discusses the relationship between privacy and algorithms that make use of large amounts of multimedia data. As users continue to post their audiovisual content online, and as companies continue to collect user profiles and interaction data, concerns about privacy are becoming increasingly urgent. The chapter focuses on multimedia algorithms, but looks beyond a purely technical approach to privacy. It explains what must be done to protect users’ privacy. The chapter explores the particular privacy challenges raised by multimedia, and specifically by big multimedia data. It presents example techniques and algorithms. The chapter provides an outlook for the next steps for multimedia privacy research. It shows cybercasing as a motivating example in order to illustrate the importance of privacy. The chapter then focuses on personal information. Personal information that must be protected is referred to as sensitive information.