IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jftint/v17y2025i3p124-d1609995.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Facial Privacy Protection with Dynamic Multi-User Access Control for Online Photo Platforms

Author

Listed:
  • Andri Santoso

    (Graduate School of Environmental, Life, Natural Science and Technology, Okayama University, Okayama 700-8530, Japan)

  • Samsul Huda

    (Green Innovation Center, Okayama University, Okayama 700-8530, Japan)

  • Yuta Kodera

    (Graduate School of Environmental, Life, Natural Science and Technology, Okayama University, Okayama 700-8530, Japan)

  • Yasuyuki Nogami

    (Graduate School of Environmental, Life, Natural Science and Technology, Okayama University, Okayama 700-8530, Japan)

Abstract

In the digital age, sharing moments through photos has become a daily habit. However, every face captured in these photos is vulnerable to unauthorized identification and potential misuse through AI-powered synthetic content generation. Previously, we introduced SnapSafe, a secure system for enabling selective image privacy focusing on facial regions for single-party scenarios. Recognizing that group photos with multiple subjects are a more common scenario, we extend SnapSafe to support multi-user facial privacy protection with dynamic access control designed for online photo platforms. Our approach introduces key splitting for access control, an owner-centric permission system for granting and revoking access to facial regions, and a request-based mechanism allowing subjects to initiate access permissions. These features ensure that facial regions remain protected while maintaining the visibility of non-facial content for general viewing. To ensure reproducibility and isolation, we implemented our solution using Docker containers. Our experimental assessment covered diverse scenarios, categorized as “Single”, “Small”, “Medium”, and “Large”, based on the number of faces in the photos. The results demonstrate the system’s effectiveness across all test scenarios, consistently performing face encryption operations in under 350 ms and achieving average face decryption times below 286 ms across various group sizes. The key-splitting operations maintained a 100 % success rate across all group configurations, while revocation operations were executed efficiently with server processing times remaining under 16 ms. These results validate the system’s capability in managing facial privacy while maintaining practical usability in online photo sharing contexts.

Suggested Citation

  • Andri Santoso & Samsul Huda & Yuta Kodera & Yasuyuki Nogami, 2025. "Facial Privacy Protection with Dynamic Multi-User Access Control for Online Photo Platforms," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 17(3), pages 1-27, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jftint:v:17:y:2025:i:3:p:124-:d:1609995
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/17/3/124/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/17/3/124/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jftint:v:17:y:2025:i:3:p:124-:d:1609995. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.