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They’re two of Australia’s most-loved TV stars – but they look completely unrecognisable in new throwback photos which have just come to light.
Sunrise hosts Nat Barr and Matt Shirvington shared previously unseen photos of themselves as kids on Wednesday’s show.
Shirvo’s snap shows him with bleach blonde hair, in a Dunk Island t-shirt and shorts set – smiling for the camera while he feeds a goat.
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Nat, meanwhile, is wearing a skivvie and dress and holding a trophy – her dark hair cut in a sleek bob and fringe style.
The hosts shared the images as part of a new drive by the Australian Federal Police as part of Child Protection Week.
The AFP is calling on Australians to submit their childhood pictures to assist in the fight against child abuse and help solve cases.
The new initiative – called My Pictures Matter – is a world first crowdsourcing project where adults submit pictures of their young selves.
The images will then be used to train AI software to detect children in photos and videos across a range of situations.
“What we’re looking for is a bit of a call to action to all adults in our community for photos from their youth,” Acting Assistant Commissioner Helen Schneider told Nat and Shirvo.
“From these photos, My Pictures Matter, we’ll be able to build a really strong database to help train artificial intelligence to detect child abuse material that we see shared on the dark web or that we seize as part of criminal investigations.”
The AFP say that it’s important Australians only submit photos of themselves.
“That’s part of the ethical part, the ethical basis of this project,” she said.
“We don’t want to use pictures of children off the internet because they can’t consent to being part of this research project.
“And we don’t want parents to send in pictures of their children because once again, they can’t consent.”
Nat and Shirvo said they were happy to submit their childhood pics “for a good cause”.
“I was feeding a goat there, so maybe that would help,” Shirvo added.
Nat said: “Well, I was holding the one trophy I got in my life – the opposite of Matt!”
Shirvo added: “She look how proud you are!”
How to get involved
If you want to help, you just need to follow a few simple steps.
“So all you need to do is to go onto www.MyPicturesMatter.org and upload your picture,” Acting Assistant Commissioner Schneider said.
“We’re looking for variety as well as a large amount of contributions to ensure that our database will have the biggest impact once we’re using this tool.
“So we’re looking for different skin tones, different backgrounds, different eras, we want diversity.”
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