Avoiding Facial Recognition of the Future

hypnosec writes "A New York-based designer has created a camouflage technique that makes it much harder for computer based facial recognition. Along with the growth of closed circuit television (CCTV) , this has become quite a concern for many around the world, especially in the UK where being on camera is simply a part of city life. Being recognized automatically by computer is something that hearkens back to 1984 or A Scanner Darkly. As we move further into the 21st century, this futuristic techno-horror fiction is seeming more and more accurate. Never fear though people, CV Dazzle has some styling and makeup ideas that will make you invisible to facial recognition cameras. Why the 'fabulous' name? It comes from World War I warship paint that used stark geometric patterning to help break up the obvious outline of the vessel. Apparently it all began as a thesis at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University. It addressed the problems with traditional techniques of hiding the face, like masks and sunglasses and looked into more socially and legally acceptable ways of styling that could prevent a computer from recognizing your face. Fans of Assassin's Creed might feel a bit at home with this, as it's all about hiding in plain sight."

Comments

Don't forget IR

[plover]

Add IR opaque contact lenses or eyeglasses. Otherwise a camera sensitive to IR could still locate your eyes easily using the Ghost Hunters effect.

I mean hey, if you're willing to paint your face like a zebra and wear a jellyfish wig, popping in a set of otherwise clear contacts should be nothing, right?

Re:Don't forget IR

[Grishnakh]

As I understand it, eyes alone aren't very helpful for facial recognition; the system also needs to see the nose and some other features to determine the dimensions of various points on your face and make a match. Notice the article talks about how effective it is to cover the bridge of the nose, as that's a critical area.

Cure worse than disease?

[icebike]

It would seem anyone running around painted this way would attract more police attention than just wearing a slouch hat. Perhaps it might be easier to just get (make) an Infrared LED Hat. Or maybe, take control of your government and vote them out until they remove the cameras.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[ironjaw33]

It would seem anyone running around painted this way would attract more police attention than just wearing a slouch hat.

With more and more automation in law enforcement, it isn't about fooling the police anymore, it's about fooling machines. As of late, law enforcement is pushing hard for automated electronic solutions which replace the venerable eyeball. GPS trackers are replacing stakeouts, speed and traffic light cameras replace traffic police, and facial recognition may be reducing the number of beat cops. When it comes to the state of the art with data mining and machine learning, there are a ton of corner cases to choose from -- a sight that may draw significant attention to a human being might be quickly discarded by an artificial neural network. Nobody will even care to look at the wig you're wearing as everyone's heads are now buried in their phones.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[turkeyfish]

"since only people who are up to no good care about the surveillance in the first place."

Perfect PC speech/mentality in our new police state, if you even remotely "look like" you are doing something wrong, its proof that you are. With anti-Talibanism on the rise, expect them to start detaining anyone with a beard or mustache, women who wear scarves, men who wear hats, etc. Coupled, with GOP efforts to eliminate the court system, just think of the money we can save by dispensing with trials all together. Instead we can have un-elected, privately contracted clothing censors, who only have to press and up or down button on their PC's, which will dispatch the drones.

Fantasy becoming reality

[tatman]

And by that I do not mean cameras and facial recognition. I'm thinking about in games and books where the characters had strange hair and make up styles. Now, it's becoming plausible.

At last!

[rsilvergun]

A practical application for my Warhammer 40K painting!

Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all well and good until masking your identity becomes the same thing as covering up your license plate. illegal

First Step - address the visual DB

[Gr8Apes]

The first step would be to stop making this easier for the government by posting and correctly tagging all those Facebook and flicker, etc, photos.

In fact, if you really want to start messing with this, get photo manipulation software, and on an entire sequence of photos stretch the nose a little, reduce the space between the nose and mouth, lengthen the chin, change the eyes a little, essentially changing all the standard measurements useful for visual identification, then "poison the well" by continuously posting these slightly altered shots up on these tracking sites and tag them appropriately. I'd personally even round robin tag them with friends names, or random ones if you don't already have a history to overcome, just to confuse the matter even more. (What, you didn't think that those pictures and info weren't available to the government, did you? They're the biggest, and free!, ID DB ever constructed)

All the other stuff, wrap around mirrored glasses that are IR/UV opaque etc will only assist in keeping them from making an easy match.

Re:We need a new fashion

[cayenne8]

Not really, the LED hat actually has some effect for most security cameras currently in use.

I've been wanting to surround my license plate holder on my car with these IR LEDs....and see if they'd blank out my plate to the stupid speed/traffic light cameras....

This is old news...

[cayenne8]

I saw this documentary many years ago, that explains how NOT to be seen..

;)

Learn to change the distance between your eyes.

[John Hasler]

It's like wiggling your ears, only a bit harder. Come on, practice! You can do it!

You might want to work on shortening and lengthening your nose, too.

Re:We need a new fashion

[X0563511]

Yes, they should - because that's the way they tend to catch idiots misusing MIRTs - the pulse pattern is visible on the cameras.

Re:We need a new fashion

[AlienIntelligence]

Also the hairdos are a bit ridiculous. If more than a couple people do this, then wouldn't "the watchers" just flag anyone with preposterous hair for additional scrutiny?

Hey you insensitive clod, I used to wear my hair that way in the 80s!

-AI

Re:We need a new fashion

[Toe, The]

No, because glasses with a big flange at the bridge are noticeable too, and authorities would just look for those.

But if we can make it a fashion, then lots of people will have them.

Now... who on Slashdot is good at setting fashions? Oh. Dang.

Re:We need a new fashion

[interkin3tic]

Ah, the old "If you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide" argument. Foolish, as it assumes the invasion of privacy will always be used only to increase public safety, and never for more nefarious purposes, while history suggests this will not be the case.