![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/6J6MCS6MGREJNLPKGOCUAT5PLY.jpg\")
He \u0101huatanga e kitea ana ng\u0101 pikitia atamai hangahanga e whakaahua ana i te taera o ng\u0101 tau 1980. <\/p>\nA new AI trend is going viral, turning ordinary photos into images that look like they were taken in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
But AI expert Dr Karaitiana Taiuru is warning people to think carefully before uploading their photos to AI services.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you are concerned about facial recognition technology, if you\u2019re concerned the Government is digitising your driver\u2019s license, if you\u2019re concerned about data centres, then you should not be using the whole trend of 80s photos.\u201d<\/p>\n
When you use ChatGPT, the information you share is handled under OpenAI\u2019s terms and privacy policy. OpenAI may use your content to improve its models, but you can turn off this use in your data settings.<\/p>\n
This doesn\u2019t mean that a photo is automatically stored as biometric data or used to create a biometric profile. But Dr Taiuru says people should think about what they are handing over.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you put it into ChatGPT or whatever\u2019s creating that image of you, it is taking your biometrics, so your measurements of your face, your skin tone, your bone structure, everything that\u2019s really unique about you is being harvested by big American tech companies.\u201d<\/p>\n
He \u0101huatanga e kitea ana ng\u0101 pikitia atamai hangahanga e whakaahua ana i te taera o ng\u0101 tau 1980. <\/p>\n
Dr Taiuru has also warned about the trend on social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat selfie is biometric data, and unlike a password, you can\u2019t change your face if it\u2019s misused,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
He says people should be aware that AI services may store and analyse uploaded images and, depending on the service, may use information to help train AI systems.<\/p>\n
\u201cFaces handed over to these trends can also be used for scams and deepfakes.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are also concerns about the energy and cooling needed to run AI services.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re worried about data centres, the amount of damage to the environment by creating one of those 80s images is quite significant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ng\u0101 ture m\u014d te atamai hangahanga<\/p>\n
New Zealand has rules under the Privacy Act 2020 about how organisations handle personal information.<\/p>\n
The Biometric Processing Privacy Code 2025 also sets specific rules for organisations carrying out biometric processing, such as using facial recognition to identify or categorise people.<\/p>\n
But simply uploading a photo to an AI service does not automatically mean those rules apply. It depends on what the company does with the image.<\/p>\n
Dr Taiuru is concerned that uploading photos to retro photo apps will result in biometric data being sold and incorporated into large databases, though whether data is actually shared, sold, or used for AI training depends entirely on the specific service\u2019s terms and privacy settings.<\/p>\n
He also says people should check what else is visible in their photos before uploading them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019ve got a background image, maybe you can see part of your license plate number, a geographic location, worse still, your children.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/DRCSOVRIXZE3HEX7SPBVH7TW6A.png\")
Hei t\u0101 T\u0101kuta Karaitiana Taiuru, m\u0113 t\u016bpato te marea i ng\u0101 whakaahua ka whakairia ki ng\u0101 pae atamai hangahanga. Ng\u0101 m\u014drearea m\u014d te iwi M\u0101ori<\/p>\n
Dr Taiuru says he has particular concerns about photos showing facial moko.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe facial moko is not considered biometric data. But the image is still in the AI. So the AI will use a person\u2019s moko, and it\u2019ll train itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
He says AI-generated images of moko could become more accurate as the technology develops.<\/p>\n
The Privacy Commissioner has also recognised that biometric technology can raise particular concerns for M\u0101ori, including where images or biometric information relate to whakapapa, wh\u0101nau, hap\u016b and iwi.<\/p>\n
Dr Taiuru is also concerned about racial profiling and inaccurate facial recognition.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we do know internationally is people of colour, Indigenous peoples often get mistakenly matched on these technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n
His advice is simple: think before uploading.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d say, don\u2019t do it. But that\u2019s not a reality. I think, yeah, consider the risks to both yourself, your whanau, the mokos and future generations.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new AI trend is going viral, turning ordinary photos into images that look like they were taken…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,52142,23753,111,139,69,49901,1414,145],"class_list":["post-600959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-data-sovereignty","tag-maori","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-online-safety","tag-social-media","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}