Internet is vast digital space and to find a photo or search a face from it is like finding a needle from haystack. However, a website called PimEyes empowers you to find a photo of a face. Just agree to its terms of service and you get photos of faces deemed similar. You are also given links to their placement on internet.

There is another facial recognition tool — Clearview AJ. However, it is available to only law enforcement agencies.

Giorgi Gobrnidze is the new owner of PimEyes. It charges $29.99 per month.

PimEyes is a useful tool for helping people to keep tabs on their online reputation. It is a stalkerware by design. There are methods to exclude the photos from public results, but that is available to subscribers who pay for PROtect plans costing about $90 to $300 per month. It blocks from results photos of faces with a high similarity level when you opt out. Such opt outs should be done regularly.

Recently, Russians have been blocked from the site.

A German data protection agency is probing PimEyes.

PimEyes is akin to a digital card catalogue. It does not store photos or individual face templates. It has URLs for individual images associated with facial features these carry.

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The civil aviation industry is data rich. Its operations has IP networks of flights. It interacts with Air Traffic Controls (ATCs). ATC connects with planes in flight and gives orders about flight path, landing and take off schedules. It has traffic management systems. In-flight, it has fleet and route operating systems and fly-by-wire control systems on plane. There are cockpit systems to track and manage loading status and fuel level, navigational systems, plane monitoring systems and engine function systems. On marketing side, it has passenger reservation systems, flyer programmes and travel portals or ticket portals. Such portals have credit card and bank details, contact numbers, addresses of passengers and so on. On HR side, they use internal systems to manage duty rosters. They track planes. Airports have also systems to track parked planes.

If the systems get hacked, there would be serious physical risk. ATC hack could become a nightmare. There would be risks of collisions. In the world, so far, such a cyber-attack has not happened.

Hackers introduce ransomware — a malicious software which would lock out owners/users. Such hackers demand payments to decrypt the system and allow the users access to their own system. They threaten to delete the data or brick the system altogether.

Civil aviation is 24×7 industry. It has to work on time. It has lot of data as we have seen. Malfunction put human like at risk.

Swissport has suffered ransomware disruptions. SpiceJet too has suffered r-ware attack. Discount airlines have suffered hack-related disruptions. SITA, Geneva has been hit in 2021. Some airlines lost customer records. Some lose credit card data.

Airlines must make their systems secure. They must make on-board systems secure. Others too must co-operate, in this endeavour. The government agencies, must formulate standards for cyber security. It means to make data stored on cloud secure. The systems must be firewalled. There should be multi-factor authorisation to access sensitive networks.

Digital experience of buyers can be enhanced in e-commerce through blockchain-based metaverse, Web 3.0 and NFTs. Digital platforms are, therefore, keep to adopt blockchain, e.g. Flipkart, Amazon, Meesho.

Buyers and sellers can interact in metaverse. Blockchain is leveraged to build trust. In e-commerce, it is to be seen how trust can be built around product quality through blockchain.

Blockchain is essentially a shared database where the entries in the block are verified and encrypted. These cannot be edited or tempered. The data is secured through cryptography in blockchain. Each participant in the network has his or her private keys (which act as digital signature) to their transactions.

Blockchain will enter into e-commerce slowly. Today, the buying experience is offline. If metaverse becomes popular, this offline experience can be had online. The very idea of e-commerce changes. User experience will act as a game-changer.

It will give boost to the small and medium scale vendors on the e-commerce platforms. On ONDC, vendors will be part of multiple e-commerce platforms.

Britain fears that the ad tech stack chain and the services that mediate ad tech may be favouring Google since Google owns the intervening components. It works to the detriment of the rivals, their customers and consumers in general.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has created Digital Markets Unit (DMU) within it empowering it to suspend, block or reverse decisions made by technology firms such as Google and Facebook and to impose financial penalties for non-compliance.

Big Tech should be more transparent about how they use consumer data, and advertising practices must adapt to the changing expectations around how data is collected and used.

As we know, personalised ads are based on third-party cookies which track the audience to target it. However, such tracking is likely to end by 2023. There will be then cookie-less advertising world. Advertising planning then will depend on authentic and anonymous data. First-party advertiser data collected with consumer consent is key data. It pertains to customers who are already affiliated to the brand. The attempt is to balance privacy with personalisation. There are innovations such as contextual targeting and cohort-based data gathering to do so.

Audience planning uses a mix of identifiers. These could be deterministic, probabilistic or contextual. It will be based on device-based data, contextual signals and cookie-less channels such as CTV, DOOH, mobile advertising and so on.

Programmatic will be data-driven. Brands must build up consumer data platform. They should enhance the first-party data, say pixels on the website or mobile app signals. This should be supplemented by third-party audience data, say device id and contextual signals. In a post-cookie world, the targeting would be mostly contextual.

As we know, e-gaming will attract a flat 28 per cent GST. India is a potential gaming hub. It is likely to become a $30 billion market by 2030.

It is necessary to distinguish between games such as racing, casinos lottery and the skill-based online games such as fantasy sports, rummy. To illustrate, Games24x7 operates several popular games such as Rummy-Circle, U Games, My II Circle and PlayCircle. This is a sunrise sector which must be dissociated with online gambling.

For skill-based games, platform owners have no right, title or interest over the prize pool amount. The prize does not form part of the value of services provided by the platform. Hence, currently, no GST is being paid by the technology platform on the prize pool. However, if the contest entry fee is taxed, the burden increases on both the gaming platform and users. It may foster a black market. Legitimate skill games will be stifled and unscrupulous gambling business will continue to operate.

Even now despite their being illegal, all kinds of betting and gambling business continue to operate.

The distinction must be made between games of chance and games of skill. Games of chance or gambling has always been taxed at a higher rate, say 28 per cent. However, games of skill has been subjected to a lower GST.

The FDI attracted by the gaming sector may suffer. It may affect the growth prospects of this growing sector.

In India, we come across all generations of telecom services — from 2G which is essentially voice communication to 4G. The ecosystem of 22 telecom circles is vastly different. The arrival of 5G is a big event. It focuses on rural connectivity. It offers data usage capacity that is multiple times that of 4G. In 5G, radio signals are driven into narrow beams, each serving an individual customer. In 4G a single radio beam serves all the customers located around a base station. The efficiency of each band of spectrum multiplies several fold. In India, there is a problem of telecom architecture — there is limited reach of broadband data services. 5G will address this.

5G networks will also drive OTT and linear TV content. The regulations governing these services must be harmonised with new standards. There are three major telecom operators — JiO, AirTel and Vodafone. These could make investments in 5G and can reap the benefits. The services can be used by e-commerce companies to prosper their business.

The average spectrum assigned to an individual operator in India is low. The telecom operators have to cater to a large number of mobile users in a given area. The system gets stretched. The speeds of downloads are, therefore, low as compared to the rest of the world. The operators are seeking large chunks of spectrum to make their 5G services viable. The reserve prices of 5G spectrum must be appropriate. The consortium of IITs have developed a domestic 5G Test Bed to provide a cost effective test environment.

Previously, bank branches were not networked, and all accounts were operated through home branches manually. There were strong objections to computerisation from the bank unions which feared unemployment of the huge clerical work force if computers were used. Slowly, the unions allowed automatic ledger machines (ALMs). Since the 1990s, the government promoted computerization.

Software firms developed the technology of Core Banking System (CBS) to process daily banking transactions and enabled updates to accounts and other financial records. CBS networks different branches of a bank. This networking enables customers to avail of banking services from any branch in any place without hassles. These banking systems were first developed in the US in the 1970s. Over a period of time, their sophistication has improved.

India has a thriving banking industry with a mix of banks — public sector banks (PSBs), private banks, and foreign banks. In addition there is a network of co-operative banks. These banks in India are spread across the length and breadth of the country.

Indian software developers of the CBS products had clientele abroad and they were exposed to excellent global products and services. In India, they developed three core banking products over a quarter of a century. They are the mainstream CBS products today.

Infosy’s subsidary EdgeVerve Systems, developed the banking software Finacle in 2000. In those days, most of the transactions happened in branches. Today most of the transactions happen in non-branch channels.

Finacle solutions address core banking, lending, digital engagement, payments, cash management, treasury analytics, AI and blockchain. Banks in over 100 countries rely on Finacle.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) developed BaNCS. It services more than 30 per cent of the global population. Two of the world’s largest CBS run on BaNCS processing 1 billion accounts. Its largest implementation was through the State Bank of India. BanNCS also includes an analytical engine. It also embeds AI techniques.

Oracle Financial Services Software too originated in India. It acquired iflex solutions in 2006. It now sells Flexcube. AirTel uses Flexcube to launch its digital payment bank in India and Nigeria. It has roped in millions of customers for AirTel. Customers can open deposit accounts in minutes. Oracle serves over 700 customers in 140 countries, and covers 15 per cent of global population.

Already, we have observed how cryptos took a beating. As it is, the governments world over do not favour cryptos as they cede their ability to manage their own fiat currency and macro-economic policies by allowing cryptos to flourish. Besides, cryptos foster dubious economic activities.

Web 3.0 is defined as the decentralised web should be promoting blockchain being used for non-cryptocurrency uses. Web 1.0 was static and decentralised. Web 2.0 currently is centralised and has fostered Big Tech. Web 3.0 copies the decentralised nature of Web 1.0, while keeping the advantages of Web 2.0.

In Web 3.0, things get moving on clicking OK on prompts. Or else you must be someone who can write his own code or drag and drop from code libraries. There are several OK prompts, and control is ceded to a centralised middleman. This middleman enables you to do what you want to get done. It appeals to us as it is convenient. Besides, if it is free, it becomes all the more appealing.

In Web 2.0, we are used to click OK when we encounter lengthy legal agreements. This along with cookies created the permission to exploit our data and created the centralised Web 2.0. With cloud computing, even larger organisations ceded control to outside organisations.

In Web 3.0, we cannot write a code on our device to communicate with an underlying blockchain. Web 3.0 apps bank on one or two companies –Alchemy and Infura. Even digital wallets storing cryptos are linked to companies. Web 3.0 thus is subservient to middlemen. Users here depend on one or two middlemen or centralisation to transact on a so called decentralised system.