
Face masks are breaking facial recognition algorithms, says new government study - rbanffy
https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/28/21344751/facial-recognition-face-masks-accuracy-nist-study
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codezero
It’s my understanding they don’t work against all kinds of depth scanners and
that there are some researchers/agencies who are using gait tracking which is
promising and doesn’t require facial recognition. I assume it might require
mass surveillance and that gaits may be localized, but the general sense I
have, is we shouldn’t get complacent and every time we think we are safe, we
are probably not being creative enough.

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asdff
Time to give each other charlie horses to limp or start awkardly stumbling
around in stilletos in public.

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tenuousemphasis
Put a pebble in your shoe.

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asdff
Brilliant. Hundreds of millions of dollars of investment squashed by a pebble.

~~~
Balgair
That 'hack' was made famous by Cory Doctorow's _Little Brother_ in 2008. It's
a good book for summer reading BTW.

[https://www.amazon.com/Little-Brother-Cory-
Doctorow/dp/07653...](https://www.amazon.com/Little-Brother-Cory-
Doctorow/dp/0765323117)

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distrill
Part of me wants to say "duh", but studies that show obvious results are still
useful.

I had a similar thought when I saw the paper last week that showed masks that
don't cover the nose are less effective than those that do. On the one hand,
why did we need a study to show this. On the other hand, now we have a study
confirming it.

~~~
dyadic
These obvious studies aren't just for the yes/no answer. It also provides
other data.

Like, if I actively wanted to evade facial recognition then I now know that a
black mask is better than a blue mask.

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mlazos
Yeah considering I can’t recognize people with a face mask on I’m not
surprised.

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minerjoe
We are just not there yet. For all the people that I can't recognize
initially, I do recognize many. And if I can do it, some supercomputer
probably can in the future, and the future is coming fast.

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bfuclusion
Good. Facial recognition coupled with mass CCTV is going to force us to make
_hard_ choices in respect to privacy, and I don't think any society on earth
is truly prepared to deal with that yet.

~~~
raxxorrax
Britain uses a lot of CCTV but I don't see them doing better on crime.
Theoretically that should conclude the topic.

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waihtis
Do you base this based on numbers or gut feeling? I've always felt unnaturally
safe in London despite it being a massive sprawl of people-filled chaos.

~~~
raxxorrax
You should certainly feel safe in London, but you can also feel safe in Paris,
Berlin or Amsterdam. That was the argument, your re-framing quite deceptive.

Numbers are difficult to compare since data collection mechanisms are subject
to change, but here you go:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_London](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_London)

The need for CCTV is marketing and gut feeling from my perspective because the
numbers say it didn't do much.

~~~
dx034
A few years back I read a statistic in the economist that said CCTV coverage
in areas reduces crimes at night to the same degree as better lighting. Sure,
there is an effect but it can easily be achieved with other methods as well.

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Havoc
How do the Chinese deal with this?

Presumably they’ve had this problem for a while.

~~~
scrollaway
I remember reading that the Chinese commonly used far more advanced algorithms
that looked at not only face but height, posture and walk to identify even
without the face, or with a partially obscured face.

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sn41
Fill your shoes with small pebbles. Once in a while, you'll stomp on them and
wince. I guess it will change your gait.

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MaxikCZ
Then they just have to look for person with pebbles in their shoes.

~~~
asddubs
that's when you start crab-walking

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Meic
And which particular Government department is in charge of stating the
bleeding obvious today?

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genericone
Covid - Check

Police Surveillance - Check

Big Tech - Check

That's a damn attractive ad-article already, even without the quotes and
fluff. Click-bait topic bingo.

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JoeAltmaier
It sure breaks mine. I saw my cousin in a mask in a restaurant, she recognized
me and I didn't know her until she spoke.

Maybe once we don't look at a person and think "Facemask!", once it becomes
normal, we'll retrain to identify folks by eyes, head shape, body language
etc. And quit relying on nose and mouth so much.

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karxxm
So in the next couple of years, face recognition algorithms will be able to
detect us only using the upper part of our face?

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cauliflower2718
Only until large sunglasses get popular.

~~~
karxxm
Then it will be features on your ears which can classify you

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0xdeadb00f
Then everyone tapes their ears up

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madalinab
There is a bigger impact on the biometrics industry. Face recognition (because
of the masks) is the most obvious one, but there are also fingerprint scanning
and voice recognition which took a hit. As a viable alternative, typing
biometrics could be the safe & user-friendly way to go (recognising people by
the way they type). You can see more on this topic on the TypingDNA blog:
[https://blog.typingdna.com/covid-19-pandemic-challenges-
the-...](https://blog.typingdna.com/covid-19-pandemic-challenges-the-
biometrics-industry/)

~~~
gver10
Could you explain what's wrong with disinfecting the fingerprint scanner?

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goatinaboat
Fingerprint scanners are legacy tech. The cool kids now are using palm vein
scanners - great CER and non-contact, you just hover your hand an inch above.

~~~
dx034
Read about those at least a decade ago but never seen them in practice. Are
they really used much?

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helsinkiandrew
You mean to say that something that covers half or more of the thing being
recognised makes the recognition worse? who'd have thought?

The real news is that the error rate for the top algorithms only dropped to
5%. I can't find these numbers in the original report on my phone:
[https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/ir/2020/NIST.IR.8311.pdf](https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/ir/2020/NIST.IR.8311.pdf)

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mcintyre1994
Out of interest has anyone tried setting up an alternative appearance in
Apple’s Face ID with a mask on yet? I only have my normal appearance set up
and a mask is enough to stop that working - which is pretty unsurprising. I
didn’t realise you could have an alternative appearance set up, curious how
well that’ll work - can it accurately learn and then recognise with a mask on?

~~~
the_other
I use it. The system recognises me about 80% unmasked, and about 50% masked.
Roughly.

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blensor
The question that comes to my mind is, how much worse did you make your
security by enrolling with a mask. Because if it recognizes you with a mask
50% of the time, how many non-yous with a mask would it recognize as you as
well?

~~~
scrollaway
The other question I have is: does it recognize you at all with a different
mask on.

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madballster
And this is exactly why no facial recognition algorithm should be called
"intelligent".

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jobigoud
Can an intelligent human recognize faces without failure when the person wears
a mask?

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bzb3
Which is a great point. It's like autonomous vehicles: it doesn't have to be
perfect; being better than humans is enough.

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JaggerJo
another reason to wear one ;)

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Markoff
good, I would be curious what impact would have mask like this I ordered few
days ago for fun :-)

[https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001276782076.html](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001276782076.html)

there are even better more expensive balaclavas, but not gonna spam it here
with link

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obilgic
Why do you need facial recognition, when cameras get good enough and just scan
retinas?

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flarg
My phone won't unlock when I'm out and about now

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me_me_me
... and suddenly in US masks are a freedom right, and only a facist-communist
would want to take them away from the good people.

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3327
Remember remember the 6th of November.

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k1t
Why?

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Taniwha
It was the day they started to torture Guy Fawkes

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m0zg
It's time to switch to gait recognition I suppose. Same cameras, different
algorithms. Where cameras can be upgraded they can be upgraded to also capture
some IR bands, in which you can see through (some) masks, clothing, and even
some plastics. Algorithms could stay roughly the same in that case.

