Fragments of the digitized portrait of the Swedish model Lena Forsen, depicted on the foldout of Playboy in November 1972, have been widely used in scientific research to test and illustrate image processing algorithms.
Last week, the IEEE Computer Society announced that starting from April 1, they will no longer accept documentation that uses the image "Lenna".
"According to the IEEE statement on diversity, as well as out of respect for the wishes of the image subject, Lena Forsen, we will no longer accept documents containing Lenna images," wrote Terry Benzell, Vice President of Technical and Conference Activities at the IEEE Computer Society.
The uncropped version of the test image first appeared on the foldout of the Playboy magazine issue in December 1972, and since June 1973, when researchers at the University of Southern California scanned a fragment of the poster to illustrate one of the articles, it began to be used as a standard image for testing and refining various image correction techniques, perfecting new processing algorithms, and so on.
Despite the clear violation of copyright, Playboy did not go to court. In 1997, Forsen was invited to the 50th annual conference of the Society for Imaging Science and Technology, where she handed out autographs to fans.
"They probably got tired of me... Looking at the same picture for years," Lena joked back then.
As Ars Technica notes, the snapshot featuring the face and bare shoulder of Forsen, dressed in a hat with a purple feather, was ideal for testing image processing systems in past years due to its high contrast and variety of details. At the same time, the use of a sexual photo of a woman by men in the computer field was criticized for decades - women in science believed that the photo "objectified women and created an academic climate in which they did not feel entirely welcome."
In 2018, the use of Lena's image for articles was prohibited by the journal Nature.
The model herself said in an interview in 2019 that she is proud of her photo, but regrets that she received little money for it. Since then, Lena has changed her mind and in the documentary film Losing Lena promoted the removal of the image.
"I left the modeling business long ago. It's time for me to leave the science field as well."
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