Zenni’s Anti-Facial Recognition Glasses are Eyewear for Our Paranoid Age

I don't disagree so curious, what would be your title instead?

You aren't wrong, but I still see two distinct benefits assuming there is an IR reflective or absorbent coating that can interfere with facial recognition.

• For non government entities it makes direct tracking of individuals much harder (i.e. if you decide not to carry your phone or smart device any one company probably doesn't know who you are).
• For government entities it's about making their job harder and increasing the error rate. You are right that they can still track someone via those means, but any time they have to correlate data or use multiple sources it does become more resource intensive in some way.

Realistically will either of the above matter? Probably not. For it to be effective a large portion of the population would need to care about their privacy, or even their principles above convenience, which they usually don't. However, I can't control what other people do, only what I do. So in this kind of situation I do my best to be a good example of the behavior I would like to see from others and do my best to not contribute to the Prisoner's Dilemma or Tragedy of the Commons.

It's not much, arguably it's basically nothing, but it's what I have.

Some of those mean the more people that use anti facial recognition tools, the more effective they will be for everyone. So we should probably just encourage everyone to use it.

They can easily make a list of people prone to use anti-facial recognition that lives in or walks by certain areas then recognize them by body-type, height, walking rhythm…

Which is why everyone should put stones in their shoes, especially if going to a protest. 🙂

Yeah, It's one tool in the toolbox. and it won't stop all those other things for sure, but products like this can help build awareness of the ubiquitous surveillance we live under. Awareness might eventually lead to policy change. So it's not a bad thing, and the article does describe the limitations and weaknesses.

Also, not for nothing, I saw a test on YouTube (Dr. John Padfield - Business Reform) where his tests showed that IR reflective hats worked better than glasses.

Best thing is to destroy all the cameras near your house.

Yeah, you might as well turn off your antivirus and firewall seeing as those can be bypassed by a skilled actor anyways.

Pretty wild getting hit with a message to accept all cookies.

Wouldn't trust the company selling it to be honest about it

Holy shit. That's awesome.

Oops, sorry!

https://archive.ph/KxZ8M

Providing the text or an archive link separately may be polite, but your request goes too far. If somebody shares a paywalled link that is on topic for the community, you have several options. You can ignore it and miss out, and be no worse off. You can find an archive copy yourself, and even share it in a comment to receive fake internet points. You can enjoy the discussion in the comments and maybe find other relevant links there. But you’re suggesting that the community is better off with fewer posts and less participation (“please don’t [post] unless”).

The community rules include

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post

That’s a much nicer way of stating a preference to have OPs do the legwork. Please don’t discourage community participation.

Those don't block infrared. They're basically transparent to it.

That would probably be more effective as a form of protest against such technologies.

Yeah but:
https://xkcd.com/1105/

DIY hoodie https://www.popsci.com/technology/camera-shy-hoodie-privacy/

These glasses are pricey tho, so maybe DIY based on the hoodie https://www.reflectacles.com/#home

I don't even know if it would work. Most cameras have an IR filter they use during the day.

Reflectacles?

I've had two pairs of these I bought years ago but unfortunately lost one pair. Chatted with the guy when I bought them and he seemed like a sound guy. I hope being sold out means his business is doing well!

Only issue I have with them is they aren't really wide enough and I have a small head. Not that they fit badly, they aren't too tight but the design looks too small on my face that it looks a bit comedic tbh.

They are also really nice to drive in at night as they stop you from being blinded by the absurdity that is modern headlights.

Article says no.

I can unlock my phone while wearing them.

[edit]

-I don't rely on biometrics, though.

The idea is it reflects IR and blows out the exposure.

It kind of has a red tinted layer which creates red blobs in quite a lot of different lighting conditions. Even with non IR photography, if you are standing outside or under bright lights there's a good chance any pictures will end up with red artifacts in the lenses, partially or completely obscuring your eyes.

Videos testing these glasses show that face-id doesn't work when wearing them. This demonstrates that (at least for Apple), covering your eye area is enough to defeat IR-based facial recognition.

Do i have to wear glasses because of some glassholes now? What a time to be alive

He used to host the cyber podcast at vice, and now also hosts the angry planet podcast. He is also a guest contributor to 404.