Do you share the same concerns as the facial recognition protesters? Are you also concerned about how you can escape the watchful eyes of facial recognition systems? Here is a rundown of things you can start doing today.
Outfit
Sweatshirts with hoodies on them will help protect most of your face from these systems.
You should ensure the hooded part is covering your forehead and sides of your head for the best protection, though. If the cameras cannot read your facial data right, they won’t be able to identify you either.
Another dressing pick that can help here is clothes with realistic faces printed on them. Since every moving human is supposed to have one face, two faces or more on the same moving body will be confusing to the systems.
Thus, now might be a good time to start your fanboy movement for the athletes, musicians, and such other stars that you love.
Lest we forget, there are new glasses inventions with small LED lights around them aimed at distorting what the cameras see. Since these cameras work via an infrared system, they will encounter interference from the LED lights and not be able to capture your face right.
Social Media
While we are battling facial recognition cameras when we step out, there are the online models that we could easily forget. An example is that of Facebook, which the social media giant uses to identify you in photos.
Before uploading pictures to social media, use noise-inducing apps to obscure how the facial recognition algorithm will read facial data. That is if you must upload an image at all.
Note that you can choose not to allow Facebook to recognize your face in photos anymore. Our concern with that is that the system needs to identify your face first before deciding not to recognize it. So, in a way, you are still being seen by the system.
That is where the other suggestions above come into the mix.
Hair
If you have long hair, this is the time to use that to your advantage. You can also employ this tip if you do not mind wearing hair attachments.
For facial recognition systems to know that it is you, they have to conduct a series of measurements in split seconds. Some of these include registering the distance between your nose’ bridge and forehead, the distance between your forehead and chin, length of your lips, etc.
When you have your hair covering a part of your face, it is no longer easy to make such measurements.
When using hair, make sure it is as subtle as possible to resonate with your personality. It does not make any sense to go out of your way to use hair in a way that will mess with your personality or daily life.
Makeup
For those comfortable wearing some makeup, there is yet another trick in them for facial recognition cameras.
If you have scars or visible marks on your face, cover them up with some makeup. You can also use a slightly lighter or darker concealer (compared to your skin tone).
Likewise, there are areas of the face that gets more illumination than the others. These areas are the forehead, chin, bridge of the nose, and cheekbones. It would make sense to darken such areas with makeup so that they are not as illuminated as they should be.
With that, we still have to collectively demand regulation and legislation around the use of these invasive systems in public spaces. After all, it is unhealthy to keep living in fear of being followed as we go about our daily business.