1y ago

Reflectacles to escape Facial Recognition

What do you guys think about this glasses to use daily to escape Facial Recognition? Worth the price? Does it really work?

https://reflectacles.com

78 comments

Relevant xkcd: https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/license_plate_2x.png
- This is also how we stop our biggest abusers of our service. They leave such a unique fingerprint from all our other customers, we just quietly shadowban them.
  
  What service, if I may ask, is it that you run?

I prefer dazzle paint. It looks way more badass.
- It doesn’t need to be as dramatic as this. The goal is simply to obscure key parts of the face that are commonly used for individualization. Between the eyebrows, the bridge of the nose, jawline, eye tilt, etc are all common key data points that facial recognition systems use to differentiate between similar faces. You can also try to avoid facial detection from pinging you in the first place, by obscuring the expected oval head shape. Style your hair asymmetrically, have bangs that droop over one eye, break up the expected round shape, use a color that mismatches your skintone, etc…
  Your face paint is definitely an extreme example of the latter. But the important part is that some may actually still be able to detect a face (even if it can’t positively identify them) because they didn’t do anything to obscure the head shape or obscure at least one of their eyes.
  
  But I want it to be as dramatic as this.
  
  So to defeat facial recognition all I need is a Flock of Seagulls haircut?
- And that's how I got kicked out of the local trader joes...
- In what direction are you moving in? I can't tell!

I doubt they work, and they're definitely not worth the price imo
I can get a pair of prescription sunglasses for less than that
- Idk if regular sunglasses will prevent your face from being captured by facial recognition systems.
  
  I don't believe the glasses you linked will do so either lol
  
  And how exactly are these glasses preventing that ? Simple ray optics would suggest otherwise !
  
  They most certainly do not, my FaceID worked flawlessly with all of my glasses, invluding sunglasses even when I did not set it up with glasses

This seems more like an art project than a functional product. Highly doubt it'll work
- Oh yeah, We're looking for that idiot in the stupid sunglasses, a tinfoil hat, and a fedora.
  
  That's a sick Raving outfit

I suppose putting on a very unique pair of glasses would for sure avoid facial recognition. Why would there be a need to recognize your face if u make yourself so obviously different vs others. Haha.
A dumbass camera would be sufficient. No need for complicated facial recognition camera.
- That's not how they work. They're highly reflective, so they block analog cameras, and they're infrared blocking, so they stop auto focus.
  
  Most cctv are small sensor fixed focus so everything is crisp without any assist though
- But if majority wear this to prevent facial recognition, they won't be standing out anymore.
  
  @learningduck @chairman Great!.... so just wait for everyone else to buy these first

I read somewhere that during covid there was a big shift in recognition techniques to overall facial morphology & gait recognition.
I'll try & find an article. Mask up & keep a coin in your shoe.
- If you keep a coin in your shoe everywhere you go then you will have the same gait regardless, everywhere you go.
  
  Take the coin out when you're doing sneaky shit.

Put your grasses on, nothing will be wrong...
- So this is what my homies mean when they say "bro this is too far, you need to touch grass"

Grab this https://hackaday.com/2022/10/20/render-yourself-invisible-to-ai-with-this-adversarial-sweater-of-doom/ and you will become the invisible man
- Okay. Who's doing the PDF deep dive and letting us know how this works in TL;DR format?
  
  You take the image recognization machine, and you run the output of your own algorithm through it, training your algorithm to value patterns that confuse the first machine.
  I wouldn't trust this to work against updated machine learning algorithms.
  
  Tl;dr It stops the ai from being able to recognize you as a person so it can't tell that your face is a face.

If you live in a authoritarian country this will just put a target on your back. They will still stop and search you: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/facial-recognition-cameras-technology-london-trial-met-police-face-cover-man-fined-a8756936.html
- Typical Europe
  
  Lol what? The met aren't even representative of policing in the UK, let alone the rest of Europe!

Worth the price is subjective. Are you a wanted criminal, or planning a heist? Then probably yes. Otherwise, probably no.
- Or maybe attending a protest in China?
  
  I would definitely want something more than these glasses in that case, but that's another possible use for them for sure.
- Maybe you just want to look sick at the next rave.
  Not their intended purpose, but that's the only one that doesn't sound stupid
  Edit: looking at their website, that might be their intended target audience.

The only thing they block is the eyes, nothing is obscured otherwise, their own demos on their website show that.
I personally won't be wasting my money, if I want to obscure my face I'll wear a face mask and color contacts like I already do.
- but if we combine the glasses with a mask maybe we have a good approach, right?
  
  I suggest balaclava with ski mask. Or this. https://medieval-armour.com/images/stories/virtuemart/product/002_2-03_lrg_so.jpg

As far as I can tell, these supposedly protect you from facial recognition because they reflect IR. I'm not an expert in security cameras, but don't they only use IR at night? While they could technically run 24/7, that would burn out the LEDs in half the time.
These are also quite similar to the "anti-paparazi" reflective clothing. If you are interested in these as a statement piece, those might be of interest to you as well.
These seem like the developer came up with the function of the sunglasses after coming up with the sunglasses (after being inspired by the anti-paparazi clothes).
All in all, I don't really see much value in these sunglasses; and I suppose I wouldn't really be that concerned about facial recognition with proper masking safety, anyways.
- I’m not an expert in security cameras, but don’t they only use IR at night?
  Precisely. And good security cameras with Sony sensors only need IR when it's pitch black. During dawn, dusk and summer nights at Nordic latitudes they don't even switch to night mode, showing sharp full-color image almost 24/7—watching that footage you wouldn't even realize that it's taken in natural light with sun below the horizon.
  And facial recognition is a standard feature these days. It's become so good that you can have two pictures of the same person, one taken at age 15 and the other at age 95, and it can still say with 95% confidence that it's the same person. And that's the prosumer-level stuff available to every Jack and Joe to install to their small business or suburban house. I don't even want to think about what the alphabet soup orgs could have access to.
  I have some experience with Dahua cameras and NVR-s. Their technical capabilities are both amazing and scary at the same time.

Any sources to back up that a vague amount of infrared of the eye region is so meaningfully essential to face recognition systems? My sunglasses reflect most visible light, and they reflect some infrared light, and they cost $5. Even granting that very shaky claim, infrared blocking materials aren't that expensive, this seems like a gimmick to make up for big prices.
A mask and any sunglasses or hat will prevent facial recognition 1000x better I suspect.
- Dunno what those cost, but a pair of IR blocking safety glasses are like 15 bucks or less, blend in a whole lot better, and won't make you stand out like a shining beacon in video.
- Someone said it was to disrupt autofocus