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'Privacy Visor' Can Fool Face-Recognition Cameras
itwbennett writes: Dark shades aren't enough to go incognito in the age of face recognition camera systems. For that you need the Privacy Visor developed at Japan's National Institute of Informatics. The visor consists of a lightweight, wraparound, semitransparent plastic sheet fitted over eyewear frames. It works by reflecting overhead light into the camera lens, causing the area around the eyes to appear much brighter than normal.
Within the week, a new update will allow
a) recognition of people wearing the "Privacy Visor"
b) selling their name to people advertizing privacy products
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
The basic reason they work is probably that current face recognition programs are confused by them. The light being shined back is a minor influence at best, it does not blind the cameras. A few tweaks and the system will recognize faces again.
All this so the cameras don't think you have a face. They still record you, and can tell you are a person by the way you move. And since you will be the only douchedork wearing these around, you should be easy to find.
I only have a small objection to simply having a fixed length history security camera record me for the off chance that a robbery happens during its two week storage window.
I have a huge objection to having a network of near-100% coverage cameras actually identifying me and logging my every movement while out in public. I don't care whether Madison Avenue or the NSA does it, I strongly object to both.
So yes, wearing giant bug-glasses, or a Jedi robe, or an IR LED tiara, or any other obvious means of concealing my face would stand out like a sore thumb to a human reviewing the footage; if it keeps the camera from automatically checking me in and out of some Big Brother sponsored version of FourSquare, however, I'd call that a drastic improvement vs an increasingly obvious future state of zero privacy.