GADGET OF THE WEEK: PRIVACY VISOR
by Hazed
Facial recognition technology still doesn’t work like it does on TV crime shows, where a smudgy low-res picture taken from CCTV can be miraculously enhanced to show a clear, hi-res image of someone’s face, which is then instantly run through multiple databases until a match is found in a matter of seconds.
But it is getting more sophisticated, and more ubiquitous. It’s very likely that should the police (or some private individual) wish to identify you as you walk down the street, they will be able to do so. So how can you make life difficult for facial recognition software?
Well, you can wear a big hat and a bushy false beard, or maybe a balaclava, but that kind of disguise is going to make you look conspicuous to human eyes. What you want is something that will foil the machines but pass unnoticed by people.
This new visor might just do it. It is a lightweight plastic sheet which wraps around glasses. It’s semi-transparent so you can see through it. But it reflects overhead light into camera lenses, which makes the area around your eyes appear a lot brighter than normal – and that messes up face-recognition systems.
Right now it is a bit bulky and not very stylish, as you will see from the source link below, but I am sure it can be refined. It certainly doesn’t look any more dorky that Google Glass did.
