Your face is your number plate.

[Astro Pen]

In the past pedestrians did not suffer the "number of the beast" style surveillance that motorists constantly live under with all the ANPR cameras.
Such is the mission creep of AI now, that 'number' is no longer needed as an identifier for these systems.
Now face recognition has bypassed such things as pet like chip implants. You can be identified, en masse and at high speed in the mall or park and not even be aware.
These days if you attend a major gig in Wales they have you logged. Perhaps the smug anti car people will realise the true trajectory of AI surveillance and that it includes them, today not tomorrow.
"If it helps fight crime," you might say. Well you might be surprised what constitutes "crime" as totalitarian government advances, ask Orwell.
Protesting against face recognition cameras will be criminalised soon enough I guess. We know you were there.

Harry Styles Cardiff Concert: Face recognition to be used on crowd

The tool has previously been used when Beyoncé performed in Cardiff and at the Coronation.

www.bbc.co.uk

Cardiff Beyoncé concert: Face recognition use criticised

The police are using the technology on the city's streets, a move that has divided opinion.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Harpo]

During the Great Malarkey of 2020 I enjoyed winding up anti-mask people on Facebook by pointing out that mask-wearing foils Face Recognition Technology, which of course they were also against. Watch ‘em squirm and swear haha.

 

[Mouse]

I avoid people, and the places they go, as much as humanly possible. So I doubt I'll be anywhere where facial recognition is a thing.

 

[CupofJoe]

I avoid people, and the places they go, as much as humanly possible. So I doubt I'll be anywhere where facial recognition is a thing.

Many payment machines [the types you get in self-service shops] have cameras in them already [in case you are trying to defraud the Co-Op of a Meal Deal or a pint of milk].
They record already and are all networked so it is only an update to their software. Then they can be used for real-time facial rec.
That it hasn't been done already is probably down to not wanting to be first over that hill.*
The same for buses [at least in London].
* I think it might already be live in my local Co-Op. I overheard someone that works there say that the entrance camera warmed them of potential shoplifters as they came into the store.

 

[Mouse]

Many payment machines [the types you get in self-service shops] have cameras in them already [in case you are trying to defraud the Co-Op of a Meal Deal or a pint of milk].

You underestimate my hermit-ness. I haven't been in a supermarket since pre-covid. And I only pay for stuff using cash.

 

[Omits]

OK, so who are the entrepreneurs now, who are designing face altering products to beat the system? Would a clip-on beard do?

 

[CupofJoe]

OK, so who are the entrepreneurs now, who are designing face altering products to beat the system? Would a clip-on beard do?

No.* Like fingerprints, facial recognition systems look for dozens of points and their relative position to each other to make a match. A fake beard or nose won't make much of a difference.
At work, there was a limited test of Facial Rec for access to one of the Labs.
It immediately became a point of honour to try and defeat it, to gain access when not allowed or to be refused entry when you should be let it.
If anyone got in that shouldn't have, they never said but radical countershading [think Dazzle Ships or cubist clownface] was the only way to stop being recognised. I saw a few of them painted up and it was rather Freaky.
Maybe tellingly, after the project ended, the facial recognition system was replaced by a swipe card.
* But I do like the idea of us all wearing Grouch masks!

 

[Astro Pen]

What I think you are all missing is the flipside logic. Once the authorities have everyone's biometrics (and trust me if you want a bank account in the cashless society they will demand them), it will be the faces that are NOT recognised that will be singled out for attention.

 

[Wayne Mack]

Be aware that there are two different uses for facial recognition and two different failure modes.

Facial recognition can be used for a one-to-one match of one face to one stored image and it can be used to select a match between one face and a large set of images (think of the computer flipping through mug shots to identify someone as a bad actor). It is the latter that is the most problematic.

The two failure modes are the false positive, where a face is match to an unrelated image, and the false negative, where a face is not matched to a correct image. The result of the matching process is not an absolute yes or no, rather it is a generated confidence level, often expressed on a scale of 0-100. A decision is then made to define a cut-off point where a confidence level is mapped to a match, to a non-match, and to indeterminate requiring additional evaluation. For one-to-one matches, the cost of a false negative is usually considered high, so the confidence level for a match is set low. For one-to-many matches, though, the cost of a false positive may be high, so the confidence level for a match is set higher.

 

[Omits]

No.* Like fingerprints, facial recognition systems look for dozens of points and their relative position to each other to make a match. A fake beard or nose won't make much of a difference.
At work, there was a limited test of Facial Rec for access to one of the Labs.
It immediately became a point of honour to try and defeat it, to gain access when not allowed or to be refused entry when you should be let it.
If anyone got in that shouldn't have, they never said but radical countershading [think Dazzle Ships or cubist clownface] was the only way to stop being recognised. I saw a few of them painted up and it was rather Freaky.
Maybe tellingly, after the project ended, the facial recognition system was replaced by a swipe card.
* But I do like the idea of us all wearing Grouch masks!

Well, as you report, it probably was less than useful so ditched.