EU Face Advanced Communication for Elders Treasuring in Society

Introduction

EUFACETS aims at maximising the value of the ERC Consolidator Project FACETS by developing a family-oriented social network app based on visage. Some faces were excluded from the forced digitalization of all faces due to the increasing digitalisation of our lives, accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic: those of the elders.

Problem Statement

The pandemic was just underlining an already existing issue: face-based social networks have been designed by young people for young people. They focus on connecting people who are distant in space but fail to connect people who are distant in time.

Memory Preservation

These platforms help individuals treasure and share their own memories, those attached to digital pictures and selfies, yet they are oblivious to memories that are enshrined in pre-digital photographs.

Project Goals

EUFACETS aims to alleviate this issue by developing an app establishing a new family-oriented social network based on visage.

Key Features

Through the app, members of extended families will be able to:

1. Digitalize analog pictures.
2. Send these pictures in digital form to the elder, who will then be able to tell a story about the picture.
3. Make the story available to the family, allowing them to listen to it and integrate it with secondary narratives.
4. Utilize facial recognition and artificial intelligence to suggest automatic identification of visages photographed in subsequent pictures.
5. Facilitate the reconstruction of the narrative.

Target Audience

The solution will grow around the elders, with the only purpose of reconnecting them with their distant relatives, friends, and acquaintances, as well as with the pre-digital past of their visage.

Ethical Considerations

This is done without any logics of commodification and control, standardization, and commercial exploitation underlying existing face-based digital platforms.