Face.com adds age detection to its photo-scanning API

Facial recognition software developer Face.com has updated its API and now claims the ability to determine the age of a face in a photograph. The company has already developed a couple of Facebook apps that tag faces in photos but hopes for wider adoption in other scenarios, with mooted use cases such as apps like Netflix gaining the ability to block content based on the person watching it. The technology will need some refining, though — CEO Gil Hirsch admitted in an interview with VentureBeat that it can only work based on how old you look, and that humans are still better than computers at ascertaining age. Indeed, Face.com’s software decided that your writer was probably 19, with a “maximum” age of 23 — since I’m actually 25, it’d be best if this API weren’t implemented in anything with legal consequences anytime soon.