TikToker accidentally sends X-rated video to her mother thanks to Google face recognition

We all know the angst of accidentally sending a message to the wrong person.

But what if that person was your mother and what if the message contained an X-rated video?

That’s precisely what happened to Kara Tonin, from Canada, who has since warned others of the perils of facial recognition technology.

In a TikTok video, that has been viewed more than 1.9 million times since Friday, Tonin explained how the mortifying mishap came about.

Alongside the clip she added the hashtags: “I’m the april fool”; “this is not a prank”; “I’m sorry mom.”

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She began with a warning to her son: “If you’re watching this right now keep scrolling, do not watch this video,” before explaining: "This is a PSA for anybody who uses Google photos or any photo app that uses facial recognition.”

Tonin then told her viewers: “So Google Photos has this incredible thing where it recognises people’s faces and if you type in their name it will pull up every picture and video with their face in it.

"And then you can make an album of that person and share it with your friends and family.

"Isn’t technology incredible? A little too f***ing incredible if you ask me."

She then explained: "So Google made a joyful little album of my son and then shared it with my mom, so any time I upload a photo of him it’ll share it with my mother.”

“So a little while back I decided I wanted to spice things up a little bit in my relationship.

"And I made a rated R video where I was doing unspeakable, un-Godly things, and Google photos picked up a very small picture of my son in the background on my fridge.

"And said ‘hey that’s a picture of Josh, let’s send the video to Kara’s mom.’

"I’m so sorry mom," she ended the message, alongside a series of crying emojis.

Tonin said her mum received a video of her doing ‘unspeakable’ things

The video has racked up more than 490,000 likes and thousands of comments from people feeling Tonin’s pain.

One imagined her mother’s response: “Dammit, we eat in there on holidays!”

Another wrote: “Me: omg that’s funny… oh wait I use… *sprints to my mom’s phone.”

Meanwhile others viewed it as a valuable lesson on the dangers of technology, with one commenting: “A little reminder to be very careful with what you upload to Google photos. They actually own the rights to any photo/video you upload on there.”

Another said sympathetically to Tonin: “Some people’s purpose is to be a story of caution for others. Bless you.”

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