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Privacy Technology

'Privacy Visor' Can Fool Face-Recognition Cameras 110

Posted by Soulskill from the why-geordi-really-wore-a-visor dept.
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.
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'Privacy Visor' Can Fool Face-Recognition Cameras More

'Privacy Visor' Can Fool Face-Recognition Cameras

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  • Kind of self-defeating (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Joe Gillian ( 3683399 ) on Wednesday August 12, 2015 @01:25AM (#50299229)

    These glasses seem kind of pointless in that from what the article says, they pretty much have to be that big in order to actually work - the earlier model by the same company was even bigger. With something like this, the goal should be to make them as surreptitious as possible so that the person wearing them doesn't stand out in a crowd and thus draw attention from whatever security organization is likely monitoring the cameras. $250 (at current exchange rates anyway) is also far too high of a price tag for a pair of what are basically glorified sunglasses.

    Now, if they looked like normal sunglasses (or better yet could be built into prescription glasses) and were under $100, I could see myself getting a pair of these if I planned to be in an area with heavy CCTV usage.

    • Re:Kind of self-defeating (Score:4, Funny)

      by freeze128 ( 544774 ) on Wednesday August 12, 2015 @01:51AM (#50299295)
      $250 to look like an idiot? Put a nylon stocking over your head for the same effect.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by wept ( 128554 )

        "Son, you got a panty on your head."

      • Geekier: buy a Spiderman or Batman suit. Avoid Superman unless you look like Christopher Reeves.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Elton John has been wearing these for years.

      • It's hardly a bargain compared to my tin-foil hat and face mask. It`s really great that we feel the need to evade facial recognition rather than banning it. I applaud the effort to provide people with tools to shield their privacy, but it needs work. Until we have something simple and easy that doesn`t look out of place to those around you or to those watching the cameras, it`s useless. Protecting your privacy and security by standing out isn`t effective. The ability to blend in is a basic requirement.

    • Re:Kind of self-defeating (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Wednesday August 12, 2015 @02:59AM (#50299411)

      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.

    • You could always just stick a couple of bright IR LEDs on normal glasses or a hat and achieve the same or better effect [boingboing.net]. They have the added bonus of having their existence be invisible to the naked eye, so nobody in person knows you're even messing with the CCTVs. Even more importantly, you don't have to wear some bizarre oversize glasses that would look out of place anywhere except a scifi convention.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        No, those don't work if you're being targeted. You can play with the color levels on the recording and 'see' behind the IR whiteout. There's a research paper showing it done but I don't remember the name of the paper. Anyway, if I wrote security software I'd flag extra bright spots. Using IR makes you stand out to the camera.

        • No, those don't work if you're being targeted. You can play with the color levels on the recording and 'see' behind the IR whiteout.

          Don't they have cameras with multi-zone AGC now that can just do this automatically anyway? Obviously if they do that's not what they call it, because I google'd

        • sigh. things like that are to foil the casual surveillance, and data aggregation.. obviously if a law enforcement agency or something similar is targeting you, it's already too late. In other words, if they want to surveil you, they will.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by The Rizz ( 1319 )

          No, those don't work if you're being targeted. You can play with the color levels on the recording and 'see' behind the IR whiteout

          Sure, and you can say "enhance" at a computer to turn a grainy photo into a HD quality one. No amount of computer magic can overcome the limitations of the recording device itself, and superbright IR/UV LEDs completely saturate the pixels on a camera. You can't "play with the color levels" if they all think they're at 100% - you need to have a different camera instead.

          Besides, if you're being targeted, they'll have actual eyes on you anyway, or already know who you are. The only use the glasses / LEDs have

      • TFA mentions this, and mentions the fact that LEDs require power...so you'll need some type of attached battery pack too. You could probably rig up some LR44's to run a couple LEDs, since those are at least rechargeable. But still need batteries.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by The Rizz ( 1319 )

          TFA mentions this, and mentions the fact that LEDs require power...so you'll need some type of attached battery pack too. You could probably rig up some LR44's to run a couple LEDs, since those are at least rechargeable. But still need batteries.

          LEDs can run off of watch batteries. You can easily fit the entirety of such in a DIY hat, and professionally made glasses could be made to fit the batteries in the frames.

          • "LEDs can run off of watch batteries"

            But not for very long.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by The Rizz ( 1319 )

              "LEDs can run off of watch batteries"

              But not for very long.

              However, they can run for days on one. Make that a rechargeable battery and it's not an issue.

    • There's a simpler and free solution [youtube.com] already.
    • Just wear a hijab.
    • not only that, but facial recognition is just going to keep getting better. in a couple years. it's going to easily identify someone like bruce wayne in his batman costume.

    • These glasses seem kind of pointless in that from what the article says, they pretty much have to be that big in order to actually work - the earlier model by the same company was even bigger. With something like this, the goal should be to make them as surreptitious as possible so that the person wearing them doesn't stand out in a crowd and thus draw attention from whatever security organization is likely monitoring the cameras. $250 (at current exchange rates anyway) is also far too high of a price tag for a pair of what are basically glorified sunglasses.

      Now, if they looked like normal sunglasses (or better yet could be built into prescription glasses) and were under $100, I could see myself getting a pair of these if I planned to be in an area with heavy CCTV usage.

      I've always felt that tiny infrared emitters installed on the frames of glasses would do a fine job of overloading cameras.

  • Let's see them cover these [deepufashion.info].

  • I'll give it a week (Score:5, Insightful)

    by penguinoid ( 724646 ) on Wednesday August 12, 2015 @01:43AM (#50299273) Homepage Journal

    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

  • wait, what? (Score:3, Funny)

    by slashmydots ( 2189826 ) on Wednesday August 12, 2015 @02:01AM (#50299315)
    How about they just look for the one wearing the gigantic white freaky sunglasses? I'd say just wear a ski mask. It's slightly less conspicuous than those glasses.
  • The visor makes you look like a weirdo and complete psycho thus clearing a space around as people attempt to avoid proximity with you.

    • clearing a space around as people attempt to avoid proximity with you.

      Is that supposed to be a bad thing?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DrXym ( 126579 )
        Depends if you want other people to treat you like a weirdo and a psycho.

        • Depends if you want other people to treat you like a weirdo and a psycho.

          Enough of those people are weirdo's and psycho's.

  • Is this [blogcritics.org] is what the wearer sees?

  • I'd sooner walk around in a hockey mask while giggling.

  • Like All Defenses... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The Raven ( 30575 ) on Wednesday August 12, 2015 @02:44AM (#50299373) Homepage

    ... this will last only until the facial recognition algorithm is trained to ignore it. If it won't fool a human, it won't fool an algorithm for long. Better fixes are ones that exploit the weaknesses of the sensors rather than attacking the algorithm. The other example [cnet.com], cited right in TFA, uses a more effective long term strategy of hampering the sensors.

    Upgrading the algorithm? Cheap, and only needs to be done once. Upgrading every sensor to filter IR? Not impossible, but much more expensive and thus likely to be skipped by businesses.

    • At least they'll get some customers : the companies working on face recognition algorithms will be probably buy a few glasses to populate their database and update their algorithms.
    • Just walk around with an osculating-frequency EMP burst generator.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Many security cameras do have an IR filter. Without an IR filter colors during daylight look really strange. An example: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/images/infrared-photography/fish.jpg Your cell phone camera has one too. In bulk this filter costs 0.2-0.5$.

      Some more high end camera's use a switchable ir cut. If the scene is bright the IR filter is inserted and a good color picture is presented. If it is too dark the camera switches the IR filter out of the optical path and delivers a acceptable black an

    • I betting that someone like Google could just keep telling their face recog expert system "no, that IS a human, look again." Have some people wear these glasses, then not wear them, same lighting etc...eventually the expert system itself will figure out how to work around it.

  • Just Wear a Cheap Burka (Score:4, Funny)

    by BoRegardless ( 721219 ) on Wednesday August 12, 2015 @03:00AM (#50299415)

    Given the weak, wimpy politically correct crowd, they'll be legal to wear in the near future.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Burqas are for women, men should wear ninja masks.

  • I thought what I'd do was... (Score:3)

    by o_ferguson ( 836655 ) on Wednesday August 12, 2015 @03:23AM (#50299457)
    ...I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes [wordpress.com].

  • Completely screws most imgane recognition and plenty of humans too for a while. Look how long Karadzic managed to hide in plain sight just by having one.

    Ok, this plan won't work for women (unless they're greek) but for us guys - seems like a winner!

  • electronic photosensors are vulnerable to IR, which can temporarily or permanently blind the camera depending on wavelength and intensity and the quality of the filters used in the camera. IRLEDs can be small enough to mount on the cloth surface of a baseball cap and powered with button cells charged by solar cells which seat to form. The hardware can be had for change out of five Dollars. Baseball caps aren't illegal (yet), and obfuscating your features for electronic identification is a protected right (u

  • The terrorists have been [dailymail.co.uk] doing [dailymail.co.uk] this for ages [frontpagemag.com]

  • It appears to reflect overhead light by virtue of being white and slightly angled - wow, science. I guess albinos won't be too concerned about this technology.

    "A 2012 version, powered by a lithium-ion battery, included LED lights around the nose that shined near-infrared light toward cameras. Computer-vision systems were also fooled by the bright light, but the visor looked dorky and required a bulky power source."

    So the new one is the same, just no leds or power source. Dorkiness has been maintained...

    All

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Skapare ( 16644 )
      in other words wearing these makes it easier for them to track you around.

      • Especially as you can be identified by your gait easily enough... it turns out that humans strive to be individually identifiable in pretty much every way possible, even if we aren't consciously intending to be.

        • Gait recognition is easy to fool - just change your gait. A small stone in one shoe will do it, as will throwing a couple extra insoles in one shoe to make one leg longer. Also, both balance and gait vary between a pair of flats and stilettos.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by KGIII ( 973947 )

            I am a bit too hairy to be able to pull off the stilettos. I think that would attract more undue attention than just maybe some makeup, changing my facial hair, and changing my glasses. That *might* get me past any facial recognition software. I am sort of difficult for them to recognize as I am actually close to what NatGeo has decided the average male will be in a few generations.

    • Re:Chindogu (Score:4, Insightful)

      by pla ( 258480 ) on Wednesday August 12, 2015 @08:11AM (#50300315) Journal
      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.

      • 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.

        That is a very good point that is too often ignored. Manual processing hurts. It's hurts so badly that it moves the idea from "let's do that" into "can't be done" territory ninety nine times out of a hundred. The differences in cost between being able to do something automatically with computers and having to do it manually, whether that is watching a security camera, or summing the general ledger, is often several orders of magnitude.

        If we can force big brother, or any of his smaller siblings, to do his da

    • I Dorkiness has been maintained...

      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.

      It's odd, but even on the glasses I wear now, it would be fairly trivial to install a couple IR chip led's to the edge of the frame, and run a wire to each, and a ground via the metal frames, lead the wires out the back, run to a battery and there ya go. The dorkiest thing about that is that it will look like one of the chains/tethers that some folks wear who have to remove ant put on their glasses a lot. Which I'm not even certain is dorkish anyhow.

      It would just look like........ glasses.

    • That earlier version sounds much more manageable. I'm a spectacle wearer, so I'm not bothered by having glasses on. If the LEDs illustrated [cnet.com] were actually Near-IR LEDs (instead of the violet-emitting ones shown) then I could imagine this working reasonably.

      I see enough people walking around with filthy great headphones on that I don't see the power supply being that much of a problem.

  • I hope that I am not forced to wear a burka just to keep some small amount of personal privacy, once big data is able to tap into nearly every single survailence camera, and use face recognition to automatically track everything I do, even with my mobile phone at home or turned off.

    Western society is be becoming more and more Orwellian.

    In the old days, people would fight and die for freedom and liberties. But now societies are willing to sacrifice these to prevent one person from being harmed from terroris

    • In the old days, people would fight and die for freedom and liberties. But now societies are willing to sacrifice these to prevent one person from being harmed from terrorists even though the odds are insignigant compared to other threats we accept such as traffic accidents...

      People are still willing to fight and die for freedom and liberties, once they are alerted and organized to the threat. The reason societies seem willing to surrender freedom and liberty is due to a combination of stealth, deception and hard-sell from the top ("you're either with us or with the terrorists", and " Because 9-11!" as the answer to all questions and criticisms).

      This didn't even start with terrorism. First it was the "Reds!", though this got some push-back in the 1970s. But just in time to provi

  • Mirrored aviators (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Maybe if the started with a pair of mirrored aviators and paired that with an Near IR LED at the outer edges they could come up with something that wouldn't look so strange.

  • Simpler solution from baseball fields. (Score:3)

    by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Wednesday August 12, 2015 @07:09AM (#50300011) Journal
    Simply wear your baseball cap front side back. It has fooled thousands of batters into thinking the fielder is looking oneway while the fielder was in fact looking the otherway. Computer vision recognition systems would be stumped by a face with no eyes, no mouth, no nose but lots of hair! I am a genius. Where do I collect my brownie points?
  • Wearing a pair of Rayban Aviator Mirror sunglasses is way cooler and reflects a lot of light too.

  • The only place where "facial recognition cameras" are common are places where you are requested to remove sunglasses, hats, etc anyway. The "let's enhance it and run it through the facial recognition software" seen on tv is utter crap. Until people start using higher resolution "security" cameras this will just be an expensive and stupid looking gimmick that will, as others have said, be easily overcome with a few software tweaks. Why are people worried about this?

  • "A 2012 version, powered by a lithium-ion battery, included LED lights around the nose that shined near-infrared light toward cameras. Computer-vision systems were also fooled by the bright light, but the visor looked dorky and required a bulky power source."

    Yup, not dorky looking. Check.

  • "Order your face recognition-stopping privacy visor online! Now with optional custom artwork printed on the front! Have a family photo, or child's artwork custom-printed for just $19.95 additional. Get yours today!"

    Or

    "Ok, here comes unknown #2, 'mustard stain lower left side' ."

  • My voice^Wface is my passport. Verify Me.
    We're all scott/tiger now! except Nicolas Cage or John Travolta.
  • Here's how it works... No self-respecting algorithm is ever going to admit recognizing someone wearing glasses like those.

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