{"id":85158,"date":"2017-01-09T12:00:58","date_gmt":"2017-01-09T12:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=85158"},"modified":"2017-01-05T14:00:24","modified_gmt":"2017-01-05T14:00:24","slug":"anti-surveillance-clothing-aims-to-hide-wearers-from-facial-recognition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/01\/anti-surveillance-clothing-aims-to-hide-wearers-from-facial-recognition\/","title":{"rendered":"Anti-Surveillance Clothing Aims to Hide Wearers from Facial Recognition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hyperface project involves printing patterns on to clothing or textiles that computers interpret as a face, in fightback against intrusive technology.<\/em><\/p>\n

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An image of a Hyperface pattern, specifically created to contain thousands of facial recognition hits. Photograph: Adam Harvey<\/p><\/div>\n

4 Jan 2017 – <\/em>The use of facial recognition software for commercial purposes is becoming more common, but, as Amazon scans faces in its physical shop<\/a> and Facebook searches photos of users to add tags to, those concerned about their privacy are fighting back.<\/p>\n

Berlin-based artist and technologist Adam Harvey aims to overwhelm and confuse these systems by presenting them with thousands of false hits so they can\u2019t tell which faces are real.<\/p>\n

The Hyperface project involves printing patterns on to clothing or textiles, which then appear to have eyes, mouths and other features that a computer can interpret as a face.<\/p>\n

This is not the first time Harvey has tried to confuse facial recognition software. During a previous project, CV Dazzle<\/a>, he attempted to create an aesthetic of makeup and hairstyling that would cause machines to be unable to detect a face.<\/p>\n

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Two models wearing CV Dazzle styling. Photograph: Adam Harvey<\/p><\/div>\n

Speaking at the Chaos Communications Congress hacking conference in Hamburg, Harvey said: \u201cAs I\u2019ve looked at in an earlier project, you can change the way you appear, but, in camouflage you can think of the figure and the ground relationship. There\u2019s also an opportunity to modify the \u2018ground\u2019, the things that appear next to you, around you, and that can also modify the computer vision confidence score.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harvey\u2019s Hyperface project aims to do just that, he says, \u201coverloading an algorithm with what it wants, oversaturating an area with faces to divert the gaze of the computer vision algorithm.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resultant patterns, which Harvey created in conjunction with international interaction studio Hyphen-Labs<\/a>, can be worn or used to blanket an area. \u201cIt can be used to modify the environment around you, whether it\u2019s someone next to you, whether you\u2019re wearing it, maybe around your head or in a new way.\u201d<\/p>\n

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An example of a Hyperface textile pattern. Photograph: Adam Harvey<\/p><\/div>\n

Explaining his hopes for how technologies like his would affect the world, Harvey showed an image of a street scene from the 1910s, pointing out that every figure in it is wearing a hat. \u201cIn 100 years from now, we\u2019re going to have a similar transformation of fashion and the way that we appear. What will that look like? Hopefully it will look like something that appears to optimise our personal privacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

To emphasise the extent to which facial recognition technology changes expectations of privacy, Harvey collated 47 different data points commercial and academic researchers claim to be able to discover from a 100×100 pixel facial image \u2013 around 2.5% of the size of a typical Instagram photo. Those include traits such as \u201ccalm\u201d or \u201ckind\u201d, criminal tendencies like \u201cpaedophile\u201d or \u201cwhite collar offender\u201d, and simple demographics like \u201cage\u201d and \u201cgender\u201d.<\/p>\n

Research from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, for instance, claims to be able to predict criminality from lip curvature, eye inner corner distance and the so-called nose-mouth angle.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of other researchers are looking at how to take that very small data and turn it into insights that can be used for marketing,\u201d Harvey said. \u201cWhat all this reminds me of is Francis Galton and eugenics. The real criminal, in these cases, are people who are perpetrating this idea, not the people who are being looked at.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harvey and Hyphen-Labs plan to reveal details on the Hyperface project this month, as part of Hyphen-Labs\u2019 new work NeuroSpeculative AfroFeminism.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theguardian.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hyperface project involves printing patterns on to clothing or textiles that computers interpret as a face, in fightback against intrusive technology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whistleblowing-surveillance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}