Pinpoint
A tool by Google to catalogue uploaded documents and files, providing OCR, indexing, and other services. Full access only granted to journalists, academic researchers and university students.
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A tool by Google to catalogue uploaded documents and files, providing OCR, indexing, and other services. Full access only granted to journalists, academic researchers and university students.
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Pinpoint is a research tool designed to assist journalists and academics in examining and analyzing large document collections. With Pinpoint, users can upload and search through documents, images, emails, handwritten notes, and audio files to find specific keywords, locations, organizations, or individuals. It’s part of the , Google’s free tool kit for research, data analysis, and data visualization.
Users can store up to in each collection, extract text from handwritten documents to make them searchable, query text from images, transcribe audio recordings and search for identifiers in image collections. For example, using Pinpoint, you can search for mentions of keywords like "abuse" or "violence" in :
Exercise caution and/or check with your parent organization before uploading sensitive or proprietary information, documents and data into Pinpoint.
Google, US
Bellingcat Volunteer Team/Unassigned
Anyone with a can browse and use public collections by other organizations. However, you need to certify that you are an academic or a journalist in order to use the platform for your own documents.
Researchers can apply through for early access to generative AI features.
Pinpoint has experimental features that use Google's Generative AI solutions, and according to on Generative AI in Pinpoint, these features "may display inaccurate information, including information about people." Additionally, some of the information you provide may be used to improve functionality, and "Google human reviewers may read, annotate and process a sample of your Pinpoint data, including your prompts and thumbs up or down feedback." As a result, Google cautions against including information "that can be used to identify you, such as phone numbers, email addresses, or birth dates when using Pinpoint’s generative AI features."
According to , "if you upload content to Pinpoint, you give Google permission to use that content, including to operate and promote Pinpoint, in accordance with the and ."
Keep in mind that Pinpoint's generative AI features are currently only available in a .
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by Fast Company
