alebrewer
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Correct. That was prior to digital photography and the internets. Completely different environment.
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AI altered Photos in listings
- Thread starter Shawangunk RE
- Start date
Mile High Trout
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- Certified Residential Appraiser
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GD, plot just took another dark turn.
Fannie, Freddie's Offshore Gambit Imperils Privacy of Millions - Appraisers Blogs
The offshore firm will data-mine millions of images showing the personal spaces of U.S. homeowners and tenants thanks to Fannie & Freddie.
appraisersblogs.com
Mile High Trout
Elite Member
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2008
- Professional Status
- Certified Residential Appraiser
- State
- Colorado
Mile High Trout
Elite Member
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2008
- Professional Status
- Certified Residential Appraiser
- State
- Colorado
You'll never stop the madness but you can slow it down.
Use of MLS systems is governed by the MLS systems.
Only an MLS policy for clearly labeled photo manipulation will save you now.
That and learning to recognize photo shopped images.
Use of MLS systems is governed by the MLS systems.
Only an MLS policy for clearly labeled photo manipulation will save you now.
That and learning to recognize photo shopped images.
alebrewer
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- Mar 11, 2008
- Professional Status
- Certified Residential Appraiser
- State
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I really hope you don't take most of what those folks put out seriously.GD, plot just took another dark turn.
Fannie, Freddie's Offshore Gambit Imperils Privacy of Millions - Appraisers Blogs
The offshore firm will data-mine millions of images showing the personal spaces of U.S. homeowners and tenants thanks to Fannie & Freddie.
Mile High Trout
Elite Member
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2008
- Professional Status
- Certified Residential Appraiser
- State
- Colorado
Thankfully you're not in charge of anyone elses credibility.
I am 'those folks' by the way.
What are you publishing?
GD son, did you even bother to read the article?
alebrewer
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- Mar 11, 2008
- Professional Status
- Certified Residential Appraiser
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Easy big fella. Take a deep breath and know that I - in all honesty - don't give one flying F what you believe or who you take seriously.
Does that make you feel better?
Mile High Trout
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- Feb 13, 2008
- Professional Status
- Certified Residential Appraiser
- State
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The post stands. These companies are not trust worthy. They're violating GLB principals. FNMA should have it's congressional charter removed for even working with them.
People are not to be taken seriously if they can't take an objective look at the facts, to consider other peoples careful analysis and hard working disclosure efforts seriously. Who's funding your position?
Why do you even bother to be here? Would you like to play a game?
alebrewer
Elite Member
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- Mar 11, 2008
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- Certified Residential Appraiser
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Not sure what this even means, but if you say so - I'm in full agreement! The post stands!
Mile High Trout
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- Certified Residential Appraiser
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Good. We'll revisit this most timely and important Bagott article on RestB, AI, outsourcing, data privacy, and third party companies.
Let me know if you have any questions or become further confused by the content. One presumes that's why you so cavalierly dismissed the content in the first place, you may not properly understand the gravity of this article, the gravity of these issues, and how alarming this issue is now that the same company sold directly to a major AMC. I'm here to help.
We'll preface this with a quick review of GLB.
https://www.FDIC.gov/affordable-mortgage-lending-center/privacy-act-issues-under-gramm-leach-bliley
Just found this. They're 'modernizing' GLB now too. Sort of difficult to say but this will probably be something Class will eventually have to reconcile. They're all in anyways. You see as an AMC, they don't care. Because they're an effectively unregulated company. Consumer protection be damned. They've gotten away with respa violations this entire time. Why not jump in on the data harvesting and data brokerage game too. The state appraisal board is powerless to do anything about the AMC companies continued expansion well beyond anything their licensing is intended for. That's the point. AMC's need to be defined as lending institutions and overseen by the SEC and other federal entities as a result of this continued expansion. I previously drew up a helpful meme to illustrate the situation of ineffective AMC oversight structure.
GLBA Modernization Legislation: Key Implications for Financial Institutions’ Data Practices
The House Financial Services Committee recently advanced legislation to modernize the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), reflecting a continued shift toward
www.consumerfinancemonitor.com
Fannie, Freddie's Offshore Gambit Imperils Privacy of Millions - Appraisers Blogs
The offshore firm will data-mine millions of images showing the personal spaces of U.S. homeowners and tenants thanks to Fannie & Freddie.
appraisersblogs.com
The offshore firm will data-mine millions of images showing the personal spaces of U.S. homeowners and tenants.
Fearing the Chinese government could access sensitive user data through the video app TikTok, House lawmakers passed a bill last month that would ban the app if it isn’t sold to new owners. But a greater peril looms.
Mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are reportedly “bench-testing” an arrangement with a foreign AI firm in which the offshore firm will data-mine millions of images showing the personal spaces of U.S. homeowners and tenants.
If your home was appraised for a refinance or new mortgage in recent years, the lender likely sent a “property data collector” to take photos of your kitchen, living room, and each of your bedrooms and bathrooms. (Pressured by the Biden administration, government-backed enterprises Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are instructing lenders they no longer need to use state-licensed appraisers for the task.) The images of your home’s interior spaces, along with identifying information, were then likely uploaded to a server run by a vendor.
Now, according to a source, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have potentially caused millions of these images to be made available to an artificial-intelligence company headquartered in Barcelona, Spain, known as Restb.AI. The images are then harvested for information with the help of artificial intelligence.
An automated inventory of a property’s contents, cross-referenced with the property’s address, would represent the holy grail for any advertiser, creditor, academic researcher, crime boss, investigator, sexual predator, gerrymanderer or hostile government. It represents the marriage of artificial intelligence, a visual-recognition technology known as “computer vision” and big data in the form of hundreds of millions of interior images for most of the nation’s 82 million single-family homes and 21 million apartment units. Does your home or apartment building have a mortgage? If so, its interior spaces, including all your visible possessions, have almost certainly been captured and uploaded.
The offshore firm is said to be testing, with Freddie and Fannie’s support, a portal that could be repurposed to allow unknown parties, including insiders at any of the partnering companies, to access a tagged catalog of items found in the home. While there’s no indication Restb.AI is tagging anything other than fireplaces, appliances and countertops, the source speculates an organization could simply purchase access to this data, so long as the party were willing to pay for it and integrate with the tool’s application programing interface or “API.” Or the data could be stolen by hackers.
A screening tool could be adapted to generate a list of American homes containing any conceivable combination of identifiable objects, limited only by the requester’s imagination. For example, it could compile a list of all American homes within a geographic area that contain a bassinet, shower grab bars, Black-Lives Matter imagery, a wheelchair, an image of the Dalai Lama, a Jewish menorah, a Frederic Remington bronze, a supplemental oxygen tank, a Muslim prayer rug, a framed military officer’s sword, a self-help book on combatting depression, a Ukrainian flag, a crucifix or a gun safe.
A key technology behind the tool is known as computer vision. It is a field of computer science that focuses on enabling computers to identify and understand objects and people in images and videos. The tool, which is owned by the Spanish company, was developed independently of Fannie and Freddie – though reportedly with the twins’ approval, encouragement and participation. It is said to be able to scan a single image and extract over 100 data points, ostensibly related only to the home’s quality, condition, repairs, flooring types and appliance models.
millions of interior photos to help the offshore vendor train its machine-learning model.Fannie and Freddie together buy or guarantee 70% of America’s mortgage market but effectively define all requirements for a mortgage’s resale on the secondary market. The source believes Freddie and Fannie may have already provided, or instructed vendors to supply, millions of interior photos to help the offshore vendor train its machine-learning model. There are many open questions.
There is corroborating evidence of the activities for anyone to see. In June 2023, Fannie Mae announced the use of “image recognition technology” as a check on appraisals. Inman Intel reported in August last year that Restb.AI’s valuation product suite was “geared at modernizing the appraisal process and utilizing new Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac programs.”
It is believed Fannie has already instructed, or will soon instruct, its six official property data collection firms to begin a massive transfer of data to the Spanish company. (In March 2023, Fannie announced it had named six exclusive vendors for something it calls “Value Acceptance and Property Data.”)
Kevin Hawkins of WAV Group reported last year that Fannie Mae had analyzed more than a million appraisals using image-recognition technology. This would almost certainly have been done through the offshore company. He wrote at that time that Restb.AI was already offering mortgage originators and appraisal management companies a [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac]-compliant “image validation solution” with its computer vision technology. The site Crunchbase has also reported on Fannie Mae’s adoption of Restb.AI’s technology.
Always worrisome has been the fact that employees of government-sponsored Freddie and Fannie are not subject to Title V conflict-of-interest constraints as federal employees are. Employees of Freddie and Fannie also operate outside the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. The public is largely in the dark over much of the twins’ dealings.
“Interior photos show the location of valuables, safes, guns, security systems, security cameras, power main, children’s rooms, entrances and exits,” said Mary Cummins, a Los Angeles-based real estate appraiser and expert witness. “Appraisers blur out people, photos of people and similar items. Property inspectors do not.
“You could end up having someone in another country looking at photos of your baby in a crib,” said Cummins. “The layout of the home is included in the [report]. Sometimes there is even a 3D photo layout which shows the exact location of the baby’s room and valuables in relation to entrances and exits. This data could end up in the wrong hands directly or through security breaches and pose a threat to the people living in the home.”
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