
A crashed advertisement reveals logs of a facial recognition system - dmit
https://twitter.com/GambleLee/status/862307447276544000
======
kimburgess
You'd be surprised / scared / outraged if you knew how common this is. Any
time you've been in a public place for the past few years, you've likely been
watched, analysed and optimised for. Advertising in the physical world is just
as scummy as it's online equivalent.

Check out the video here [http://sightcorp.com/](http://sightcorp.com/) for an
ultra creepy overview. You can even try their live demo: [https://face-
api.sightcorp.com/demo_basic/](https://face-api.sightcorp.com/demo_basic/).

~~~
TFortunato
I tried the demo. A little sad, that it sees me as 12 years older than I am,
and that I apparently always look angry and disgusted! I'm going to blame it
on my glasses and bushy beard, and try to look at the bright side - apparently
face scanning systems aren't quite good enough to get a read on me yet. (And
try not to be too sad about looking like a grumpy old man)

(Anyone else with a glasses, a beard, or other non-typical facial features
want to comment? I'm curious now how well their system handles these?)

~~~
aiahopeful
I'm a 25 year old male, bald with a full beard, and it thinks I'm a 33 year
old woman. At least it could tell I was happy?

~~~
smoyer
and profession = circus sideshow?

------
anabis
In Japan at least, before automated facial recognition, cashiers recorded
buyer demographics by hand. I would think other places do it too.

Edit: Here is what the buttons look like. Gender and age.
[https://image.slidesharecdn.com/hvc-c-android-
prototype20141...](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/hvc-c-android-
prototype20141223-141224131940-conversion-
gate01/95/hvccbleandroid-6-638.jpg?cb=1419427358)

~~~
cyberferret
In a few stores here in Australia, I am asked for my post code (or country of
residence if no post code) by the cashier when ringing up a sale.
Predominantly at tourist/tour related points of sale, but I've also had it an
electronics and white goods stores.

No idea if the operator is also recording gender and perceived age group etc.,
but I do know that on most occasions, you can opt not to answer the post code
question.

~~~
punk_coder
I'm not sure if it's true, but a friend once told me the reason a store asked
for your zip code was to see if they had a large audience coming from a
certain area. This let them know other locations to possibly open other
stores.

~~~
alsetmusic
As far back as 2000, my partner was asked for her zip code as we made a
purchase and I curtly replied "no comment," to the surprise of everyone there.
She walked for her phone number, which really irritated me because this was a
$5 retail purchase of some type), and I got more curt when I said, "You don't
need that!"

I've been annoyed by this stuff long before most people were ready to consider
privacy concerns anything more than paranoia.

~~~
jabagonuts
I like to give fake numbers in these situations. The way I see it,
intentionally supplying bogus data is one of the only ways we have left to
fight the machines and their algorithms!

~~~
rhizome
My father had memorized a fake _Social Security Number_ that had come as a
sample card in a wallet he got in the 1950s. When anybody except the
government asked for his SSN and who wouldn't relent on his pushback, he would
give them that number.

~~~
kalleboo
It wasn't 078-05-1120?

[https://www.ssa.gov/history/ssn/misused.html](https://www.ssa.gov/history/ssn/misused.html)

~~~
rhizome
Wow, nice! I don't know if he was one of the 12 in 1977, but he would have
been if this is the number he used. Woolworth's totally makes sense. If he
were alive, he would poop purple Twinkies at that story. Thanks!

------
samtho
During 2010-2012, I was part of a startup called Clownfish Media. We basically
created something very similar to this and got scary accurate results then.
Given how accessible computer vision has become, the image in the tweet comes
at no surprise to me.

Best part - we got a first gen raspberry pi to crunch all the data locally at
2-5fps. Gender, age group (child, youth, teen, young adult, middle age,
senior), and approximate ethnicity were all recorded and logged. Everyone had
a unique profile and could track people between cameras and days (underlying
facial features do not change).

Next time you look at digital signage, just be aware that it is probably
looking back at you.

~~~
mattcoles
Do you feel it was ethical to work on that?

~~~
deadbunny
Not GP but I've worked in a similar industry.

For me I knew how our data was anonymized. So while our system would be able
to say "I have seen person 1234 at locations 4,7,9,11 on dates x,y,x" we had
absolutely no way of knowing who 1234 was or anything about them, even the
unique identifier was just a hash.

Obviously it depends on how much data you collect/store, personally I don't
think the things shown in OP are all that onerous (sex, age group, gender,
rage, time spent looking at ad).

~~~
chandler
> So while our system would be able to say "I have seen person 1234 at
> locations 4,7,9,11 on dates x,y,x" we had absolutely no way of knowing who
> 1234 was or anything about them...

Minor nitpick, but giving someone a nickname isn't the same as anonymization.

"Hey Bob, thanks for logging on. Did you know we've been calling you 1234
these past five years!"

When a passive recognition system _uniquely_ tracks & identifies a person, it
just takes time before that gets cross-referenced.

(different story if the data gets aggregated, or you scrub the uid completely
after some window)

------
_-_T_-_
(Supposedly) Lee Gambles comment on Reddit -

"Hi. I am the original taker of the photo. There is a screen that normally
shows peppes pizza advertisements in front of peppes pizza in Oslo S. The
advertisements had crashed revealing what was running underneath the ads. As I
approached the screen to take a picture, the screen began scrolling with my
generic information - That I am young male (sorry my profile picture was
misleading, not a woman), wearing glasses, where I was looking, and if I was
smiling and how much I was smiling. The intention behind my original post on
facebook was merely to point out that people may not know that these sort of
demographics are being collected about them merely by approaching and looking
at an advertisement. the camera was not, at a glance, evident. It was merely
meant as informational, maybe to point out what we all know or suspect anyway,
but just to put it out in the open. I believe the only intent behind the data
collected is engagement and demographic statistics for better targeted
advertisements."

Source:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/norge/comments/67jox4/denne_kr%C3%A...](https://www.reddit.com/r/norge/comments/67jox4/denne_kr%C3%A6sjede_skjermen_p%C3%A5_peppespizza_viser_en/dgrltgl/)

~~~
baldfat
It is still a BIG ethical issue for some people. Myself I see this as just the
natural progression we are headed. If we don't have rules about this kind of
technology it will very much be "Minority Report" in a decade.

~~~
794CD01
How is it an ethical issue for strangers to look at your face when you are out
in public?

~~~
metalon
More like strangers taking pictures of you without your consent (and often
knowledge) with the intent to increase their profits and not sharing any of
that with you.

~~~
794CD01
Ethically, neither your consent or knowledge is required for someone to see
you in public and remember that image. Why they do it isn't really relevant.
If they use that image to do something unethical, like commit fraud, it is the
fraud that is unethical, not the imaging.

~~~
JauntTrooper
I think many people would disagree. It might be legal, but that doesn't mean
it's not unethical.

If a stranger on the street started following me, taking pictures without
permission, and taking notes about my appearance of actions and storing it in
their database, I would say he was behaving unethically.

Ask street photographers - it's a delicate balance. Many people really dislike
having their pictures taken without their permission.

~~~
794CD01
That is a lot of words to simply say that some people think it is unethical.
Which is an essentially empty statement. Couldn't you at least say most people
and make it an argumentum ad populum?

~~~
baldfat
lawful and ethical are two totally different things. They are both related but
are mutually exclusive of each other

ethical != opinion

Ethical has weight and you can lose your job, and even go to jail for being
unethical. RMS actually has a very strong academic ethical mind (Even though I
disagree with him more then agree). BUT ethics isn't easily defined.

Here is a decent link to defining Ethics. [https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-
resources/ethical-decision...](https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-
resources/ethical-decision-making/what-is-ethics/)

~~~
794CD01
>lawful and ethical are two totally different things.

Mind explaining where you think I implied otherwise? Or why you keep repeating
this despite the fact that I haven't?

>Ethical has weight and you can lose your job, and even go to jail for [what
your boss thinks is] unethical.

For example, doctors who get fired for performing abortions, something that
most of hn doesn't find unethical.

>[https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-
decision...](https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-
making/what-is-ethics/)

That is itself, merely what Manuel Velasquez, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks,
S.J., and Michael J. Meyer find ethical.

------
gedrap
To be honest, I am fairly surprised at the reaction here on HN. It's not
really surprising to see such system, it would be more surprising if such
system did not exist because offline ads is a huge business and the technology
is here. This goes together with conversion tracking at physical shops, etc.

I am equally surprised by the comments about how come engineers implement such
systems, how they find it ethical, etc. I'm sorry, but it sounds just a bit
out of touch with the real world, or just outside of HN bubble. Given the
things that money motivates people to do, it's probably one of the least
unethical things that has been done.

I am not judging that this is right or wrong, I am simply stating the fact
that nothing about this should be surprising. Yes, this is slightly sad, but
that's simply the reality of technological advancement. It's not really
possible to expect the rest of the world to use the technology only for things
considered 'right', etc.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Well, nothing here is surprising beyond maybe the scale of things (if a random
pizza joint now uses facial recognition in ads, who else is using them?). But
those things still need to be called out and opposed, because peer pressure is
an important part of morality in society. People are social animals, and are
less likely to do things that are disliked by their friends.

Looking at things from a little distance, the whole thing is abhorrent, and
paints a really sad state of our society. I wrote this many times, and will
keep writing it: if you did the same things personally to your friend that
people in advertising industry do to everyone, you'd most likely get punched
in the face. And yet somehow marketing became a _respectable occupation_.

~~~
fixermark
Do they need to be opposed though?

There isn't really much consensus---even on HN---that passive demographic data
collection is a bad thing alone. People claim it is, and I believe they feel
it is---then they turn around and do things that compromise their stated
beliefs because it's convenient.

I liken it to the gap between the rhetoric around open source and free
software and the reality that Windows and Mac OS make up approximately 90% of
OS marketshare. You can believe what you want to believe, but from a business
standpoint you'd be putting yourself at a disadvantage if you structure your
business requiring FOSS operating systems to climb to even 25% of marketshare;
there's a similar situation, probably, for customer data tracking and
advertising preference tracking.

------
ffriend
As someone working on a similar project (specifically, emotion recognition)
I'm highly interested to hear how such a product should look like to be not
considered unethical. So far from the comments I see that:

\- it should be made clear that you are being analyzed e.g. by big yellow
sticker near the camera

\- no raw data should be stored

\- it should be used to collect statistics, not identify individuals (?)

Is it sufficient to consider such a software as a fair use? What else would
you add to the list to make it reasonable?

~~~
TeMPOraL
It's actually pretty simple - don't use it _on_ people.

Advertising? No. Sales? Definitely no.

Augmenting that single-player video game so that it adjusts content depending
on emotions and gaze of the player? Ok. Better if the player is explicitly
told the game will track their reactions though.

EDIT:

Also, another angle. Even for advertisers / "sales optimization", I'd forgive
you if that was a local, on-site system. But if it's meant as a SaaS, with
deployments connected to vendor's butt, then I am gonna actively try to screw
with it if I learn there's one installed anywhere I frequent. Hopefully new EU
laws will curb that, though.

~~~
fixermark
Editing note: unless it was intentional, you appear to have your "cloud to
butt" web extension enabled. ;)

~~~
TeMPOraL
I had it on for so long that, for my brain, the two words are basically the
same now :). I keep forgetting about it when I edit a post (the substitution
happens on display, not on submit).

------
cyberferret
Uh, I got sidetracked and brain hammered by the devolving discussion on that
Twitter thread, thus couldn't find the context for this pizza shop kiosk - Is
it a customer service portal that attempts to identify the person in front of
it to try and match up with an order, or a plain advertising display that is
trying to capture the demographics of the people who happen to stop in front
of it and look at it?

~~~
nom
It's an ad. May be targeted advertising, or just simple engagement analysis.

[http://www.dinside.no/okonomi/reklameskilt-ser-hvem-du-
er/67...](http://www.dinside.no/okonomi/reklameskilt-ser-hvem-du-er/67552025)

Edit: there is more information in the article. Not going to read it, though.

~~~
vilhelm_s
To summarize, it's an experimental project, there is so far only one such
screen at the train station. If someone stands within 5 meters of the screen
it will try to classify their age and gender and show a targeted ad, and
record how long they looked at it. The raw images are not saved.

The screen uses a software called Kairos to analyze faces. It can estimate
age, gender, and whether you are "white, black, hispanic, asian, or other".

According to the marketing manager at Peppe's Pizza, he thought there would a
label on the screen saying what's going on, but in fact there is just a small
sticker on the back of it, which is quite hard to see.

The company making the screen, ProtoTV, says that people should be okay with
this because ads on the internet are even more targeted. A government
representative says that the system might violate laws about surveillance
cameras.

~~~
shandor
Thank you, this was the first comment actually telling more on the matter
after all the "it said I'm X years old!" comments :)

I guess using such a system just to analyze people in real-time might already
violate some surveillance laws like you said (in my country all such cameras
must be warned about, even traffic cameras). But do you have any idea if those
things also record data on customers? I could see how keeping such a database
on customers might be dancing on the fine line of creating a "registry", which
is pretty heavily regulated by laws at least here. Even more so if there is a
possibility to identify real persons from that data.

------
tjpnz
It saddens me that there are people in our profession for whom implementing
such a thing presents no moral or ethical dilemma.

~~~
andbberger
Has nothing to do with morals - people gotta eat

~~~
tspike
The alternative in our industry is not starvation.

------
dsmithatx
Here is the software the sign is using.

[http://www.adflownetworks.com/audience-
detection/](http://www.adflownetworks.com/audience-detection/)

------
korethr
Though not at the level depicted in the movie, I am nonetheless reminded of
Minority Report.

~~~
tyingq
For those that haven't seen it, here's the scene where all the digital signage
knows who John Anderton is:
[https://youtu.be/7bXJ_obaiYQ](https://youtu.be/7bXJ_obaiYQ)

The movie was released in 2002, so fairly prescient.

~~~
dragonwriter
It wasn't that prescient; public-location commercial facial recognition system
had been deployed for several years, and companies were, IIRC, already
actively promoting customer tracking and advertising applications at the time.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
It's worth noting the 2002 movie _Minority Report_ is based on a shorty story
of the same name published by Philip K. Dick in 1956.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Minority_Report](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Minority_Report)

~~~
tyingq
I was attributing this bit to the film...I suspect the digital signage scene
wasn't from the short story.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Ah, right, yep good point. I've read the story but my memory of the film
overwhelms my memory of the story. I believe you are correct.

~~~
dllthomas
Yeah, the short story was very little like the film.

------
treyfitty
I've sifted through 80% of the comments here, and I couldn't find a mention
about the unintended consequences of this technology.

Ethical vs. Unethical, Pro-Privacy vs. Against Privacy are the two common
discussion points. I, however, think the bigger problem here is that there's a
very non-zero probability that this technology may cause unintended
consequences simply by relying on false/inaccurate data.

For one, I work in analytics (loaded catch-all occupation) and I work with
people who would marry their "data skills" if they could. In my industry,
false positives of 80% is acceptable, and openly admitted errors in "machine-
learning" logic (quoted to highlight my company's buzz-word usage, but
practically non-existent) are made daily. People create algorithms, and people
make errors.

Let's let our imagination run wild here for a second: It's 2030, and this
technology becomes ubiquitous to the point where no one objects. Businesses
take all the data from sentiments, gender, age...etc. to optimize for their
target demographic, and price accordingly. In other words, let's assume this
tech is used for perfect price discrimination. Economic theory dictates this
is a win-win for everyone since everyone starts paying their willingness to
pay. But, let's assume there's a catastrophe and medicine is in dire need.
Price discrimination works fine assuming perfect competition, and is a useful
framework, but it breaks down empirically where we live in a society that
doesn't behave so rationally. Who survives? Those willing to pay the most, and
the algorithm worked flawlessly here. But it was not intended to dictate who
survives.

What I'm trying to say is that we should be cognizant of the fact that we
don't live in a perfect bubble, and technology like this should be scrutinized
for it's effects exhaustively- including any unintended consequences. We live
in a society (duh), and as a society, it is up to us, with the help of policy
makers, to determine the fate of this technology.

~~~
spangry
IMHO, perfect price discrimination is not usually a good thing. It's often
discussed more in the context of _monopolies_. Under simple market models
(e.g. no externalities, downward sloping demand curve etc.), a profit-
maximising monopolist will set prices above the market clearing prince,
resulting in dead-weight loss (market inefficiency).

However, there is one situation where monopolies achieve market-efficiency:
when the monopolist can perfectly price-discriminate. This eliminates the
dead-weight loss. But, crucially, this also means that all of the gains from
trade accrue entirely to the monopolist, as consumers are all paying their own
individual 'indifference' prices.

It's a value judgement, but I don't see this as a socially optimal outcome
even if it is the market efficient one.

~~~
treyfitty
Yes, I agree that it's not the optimal outcome. (I should have not used "win-
win" and instead used "win-win for some consumers.") I was trying to emphasize
the individual consumer only having to pay what they were willing to pay- not
making a judgement call on what is optimal.

Furthermore, The scenario you highlight is price discrimination to the first
degree, where the monopolist captures all the "surplus." Economists generally
claim this outcome to be "unrealistic" but it helps us understand the more
traditional outcome:
[https://courses.byui.edu/econ_150/econ_150_old_site/images/8...](https://courses.byui.edu/econ_150/econ_150_old_site/images/8-2_Price_Discrimination_01.jpg)

As you can see, there is still consumer surplus from a monopoly price
discriminating, but at the cost of a deadweight loss.

~~~
spangry
Fair enough, I agree that we could be here all day if we opened the value-
judgement can of worms (though I do wish we did this when discussing public
economic policy).

 _Economists generally claim this outcome to be "unrealistic" but it helps us
understand the more traditional outcome_

I agree with this. Just to add, pretty much every simplified market model you
would find in an undergraduate-level textbook won't correspond to any market
in reality. As you suggest, they're just very simplified models designed to
'kinda point you in the right direction', rather than be taken as a
description of reality. The most dangerous people tend to be those who took
micro 101 but were never told the latter :)

------
pavement
Okay, time to start wearing ski masks and Santa Claus costumes in public at
all times.

~~~
rhizome
A defense using makeup and hair: [https://ahprojects.com/projects/cv-
dazzle/](https://ahprojects.com/projects/cv-dazzle/)

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
Hah, looking through all those looks reminds me of the captcha problem though:
computers won't be able to detect your face, but neither will people.

~~~
jes5199
Eh, what's so great about other people anyway.

------
DonHopkins
There should be one of these in front to the ad to give passers by more
privacy:

[http://hackaday.com/2010/10/15/window-curtain-moves-to-
scree...](http://hackaday.com/2010/10/15/window-curtain-moves-to-screen-
pedestrians/)

------
spangry
I'm a little surprised about the HN reaction on this one. You guys didn't seem
to care about collection of passive biometrics a year ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11172652](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11172652)
. What's changed?

~~~
mostlyskeptical
That's the one benefit of Trump getting elected: half of the US cares about
civil liberties and privacy again.

~~~
spangry
I suspect you're right; I've noticed we also like the 'news' media again. I
guess it's only a problem when it's not "your side" invading people's privacy,
spreading false propaganda, destroying liberal democracy etc. etc.

------
alkonaut
This is in itself not scary compared to what a random website does when I
visit. That is - given that what we see in this log is actually all it does.
What's scary is what we don't see (does it store this? does it cross reference
anything? does it target ads based on it)?

I don't really think that's the case (here, yet) but I do think it's scary
that it's so easy to do that its not just done as a proof of concept but
actually used in production in a low tech industry.

Gathering _demographic_ or _sentiment_ without storing, cross referencing (has
this person been here before etc) or otherwise using the data for anything
such as targeting ads - is kind of acceptable. I mean it wouldn't be hard to
do that manually via a camera if you wanted to test the engagement of an ad.
I'm sort of hoping this is just some tech project from a university or
something, and not an actual product you can buy and hook into some adtech
service.

Edit: as someone else pointed out - it's not a proof of concept it's an adtech
off the shelf product. Because of course :(
[http://www.adflownetworks.com/audience-
detection/](http://www.adflownetworks.com/audience-detection/)

------
Kliment
And just today I got an ad (in the paper mail) from an electronics distributor
notifying me of new parts they stock. Among them was an embedded face and
expression recognition engine that would emit pretty much this data, in a
convenient text output you can read into any little microcontroller and act on
(omron B5T-007001-010 if anyone is interested). This is no longer exciting
cutting edge technology, it's off the shelf. And terrifying.

~~~
alanfalcon
If you visit my website and fail to complete a purchase, you may find a
physical postcard in the mail from us in a few days with a surreptitious
coupon code. No, you did not actually tell us your mailing address at any
point; knowing your e-mail is sufficient.

~~~
Kliment
That 100% guarantees I'll never complete a purchase with you, and I'll warn
others to avoid you too.

~~~
alanfalcon
But for every you, there's ten people who complete their purchase using the
code they received, and my boss makes more money and I keep my job.

Until and unless those ratios reverse, it's going to be that way and you'll
have fewer and fewer places to shop. (I'd happily make the case to my boss
that he makes more money without retargeting tactics like this if such were
the truth.)

~~~
Kliment
I'm okay with that. I find your practices disgusting but I'm not in a position
to be telling your customers what they should be choosing. So all I can do is
vote against it with my money and reward shops that don't do evil. There's
very few things that I need badly enough to put up with that crap.

~~~
alanfalcon
You classify sending un-asked-for mail as evil? (I admit the company that
provides this service is not doing God's work by combining/selling all their
customers' databases to make this possible, and so by enabling them neither
are we. I'm not seeing how it's exactly evil though.)

------
clydethefrog
For consideration :

How to ZAP a Camera: Using Lasers to Temporarily Neutralize Camera Sensors

[http://www.naimark.net/projects/zap/howto.html](http://www.naimark.net/projects/zap/howto.html)

------
nsgi
For an even more disturbing idea, Titan Park in Beijing has machines in its
toilets which scan peoples' faces before dispensing toilet paper.

[https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2017/03/21/park-uses-
facial...](https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2017/03/21/park-uses-facial-
recognition-to-wipe-out-toilet-paper-thieves/)

------
spsful
Oh look, Ghostery's product pitch comes in handy now
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKzyifAvC_U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKzyifAvC_U)

~~~
bigbugbag
Ghostery was this tool aimed at privacy minded people that collected their
data to provide advertisers for their effort of defeating measures taken by
privacy minded people. No way I will trust this ever.

------
kirykl
With this much personal care to really know their customers by face I'm sure
they put just as much personal care into the quality and craft of the product
/s

------
gech
Despicable. Any authors of this work should be publicly shamed and punished.
And don't get me started on what should befall the owners of capital that
drove this.

------
josteink
A norwegian article on the subject:
[http://www.dinside.no/okonomi/reklameskilt-ser-hvem-du-
er/67...](http://www.dinside.no/okonomi/reklameskilt-ser-hvem-du-er/67552025)

Google translate is readable, if not super-mega-accurate:
[https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dinside.no%2Fokonomi%2Freklameskilt-
ser-hvem-du-er%2F67552025&edit-text=)

------
nateberkopec
I saw a pitch for this tech 5 years ago. Not sure the name of the company. The
idea is they can measure engagement (how long you looked), approximate age and
sex.

Five years ago it didn't seem so sinister. A lot has happened since then, I
guess.

~~~
wingerlang
I don't see why it is sinister today, so they show healthy food to women and
meat to men _. Seems like a win-win situation.

_ I think this is what they did, anyway.

~~~
bigbugbag
Why would it be sinister to have an automated eye able to instantly sort
humans in dubious categories ?

Maybe in a different political context where one category is sent to death
camps, another to forced labor camps, etc.

------
BenGosub
Funny that this has been posted by ambient/experimental music producer Lee
Gamble [https://soundcloud.com/leegamble](https://soundcloud.com/leegamble)

------
stanmancan
This has been happening for at least a decade. I had to do some updates on a
system in 2008 that had this same functionality built in, and they were far
from the first company to do it.

------
tps5
I don't see any evidence that this is a "facial recognition system."

It's likely hard to legislate against software that attempts to detect if
there is a person, what their expression is, and guesses at their gender.

You could imagine that job being done by a person (just noting how many people
stopped at the advertisement, and what their expression was). I don't think
there's really a way to make that illegal.

I suppose I think it's something that people should be aware of, though.

------
bighi
I work in a big retail company here in Brazil.

If you enter most of our stores with a phone in your pocket, you're being
tracked. They track where you went, in front of what shelves you stopped and
for how long, if you went to the cashiers of just left...

And if we track people here in the third world, you can be sure you are being
much more tracked in first world stores.

------
Smushman
Original Reddit post with background:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/norge/comments/67jox4/denne_kr%C3%A...](https://www.reddit.com/r/norge/comments/67jox4/denne_kr%C3%A6sjede_skjermen_p%C3%A5_peppespizza_viser_en/)

"...peppes pizza in Oslo S."

------
PeterStuer
There are many solutions that do this, both proprietary and Open Source.
Accuracy is influenced by lots of factors, some to do with the setup (camera
angle, lighting) the hardware (camera quality, computation speed) and the
subjects (race, facial hair, glasses). We used this in research projects
involving elderly mood assessment and in television viewer's emphatic
responses. The package we used was marketed by Noldus (
[http://noldus.com](http://noldus.com) ) and developed bu Vicarvision (
[http://vicarvision.nl](http://vicarvision.nl) ), but most of these packages
perform at about the same level.

------
littlecranky67
This is nothing new; Ad Companies are actively marketing this features. See
i.e. [http://livedooh.com](http://livedooh.com)

Quote from their website: "Audience Measurement included

The information and statistics needed in order to realize audience targeting
in DOOH is gathered through livedooh’s integrated anonymous video analysis,
which collects information about gender, age and length of view. Audience
metrics are used by the ad server’s decision engine to optimize advertisement
delivery and increase performance."

------
yalogin
It just makes too much sense to show ads based on the demographics. They now
have robots in malls too. They are just recording everything, processing,
logging, extracting, selling and up selling. There is no privacy. The problem
is not only does it make economic sense just to have these robots, the added
intelligence from the data mining makes it even more attractive.

------
staticelf
This is illegal in both Sweden and Norway though.

------
beached_whale
The Island Airport(Billy Bishop) in Toronto is littered with adverts that are
camera connected. Other than, maybe power management, looking at what is
possible in OpenCV gives a good indication of what can, and probable is, being
done. From tracking where you look to matching faces....

The problem is that this is an agency(of the government) owned facility.

------
ddmma
Imagine you can automatically track customer loyalty and offer them discounts.
Here is an integration example using arduino also
[https://www.hackster.io/dasdata/dascognitiveservices-c2d991](https://www.hackster.io/dasdata/dascognitiveservices-c2d991)

------
throwaway74727
India is forcing this Orwelling nightmare upon all its citizens (under very
shady circumstances).

[http://www.rediff.com/news/column/the-aaadhar-effect-say-
bye...](http://www.rediff.com/news/column/the-aaadhar-effect-say-bye-to-your-
privacy/20170325.htm)

------
Shinchy
God the comments on that tweet are enough to make me lose all faith in
humanity, honestly what is wrong with people.

------
bschwindHN
I wonder if someone wore a shirt with this pattern while walking in front of
it

[https://thenextweb.com/tech/2017/01/04/anti-facial-
recogniti...](https://thenextweb.com/tech/2017/01/04/anti-facial-recognition-
apprel/#.tnw_UEmpUCsC)

------
jlebrech
how does it detect which gender you identify as? mind reading?

------
Cyph0n
I wonder how accurate these measurements are in practice. They could just be
placeholder implementations, right?

~~~
emilga
At Vitensenteret (science center) in Trondheim they have a web cam hooked up
to a TV screen where they show a live view of some face scanner software
(multiple faces simultaneously). It estimates your gender, age, and mood
(happy, sad, angry, surprised).

Every time I've visited it's been quite accurate on me, my friends, and on the
other visitors.

EDIT: here is a pic of what I'm describing:
[http://fredly.fhs.no/dancemixbloggen/wp-
content/uploads/site...](http://fredly.fhs.no/dancemixbloggen/wp-
content/uploads/sites/10/2015/03/IMG_1913-300x225.jpg)

------
dghughes
male young adult

I think they zeroed in on their demographic, good job!

~~~
kristofferR
Males are offered meat ads, while females are offered salad ads. Kinda sad in
a way.

~~~
cerved
What kind of psychopat buys sallad at a pizza joint?

~~~
funnyfacts365
Me? And I'm not even female...

------
killin_dan
Is this illegal? They have the right to process their own footage, I would
think.

------
sleepybrett
This has been a feature of these digital sign products for a few years,
generally they aren't interested in specific faces, just if faces are seen
looking at the sign and for how long. It's all just simple opencv stuff.

------
avg_dev
Well, that's disturbing. I bet we'll see much more of this in the coming days.

~~~
ludjer
How is this disturbing? its just like some a public webcam that gets used to
identify people. If it is in the public you have no privacy. If you want
privacy go home as soon as you are out of your house you lose your privacy. I
am a big voter for privacy in your home and private but out in the public your
are not private anymore and therefore privacy falls away. Privacy and private
kinda go hand in hand. you cant have privacy in a public space it is
impossible.

~~~
Nursie
Utter crap.

Just because I am not in my house does not mean I consent to being tracked
everywhere I go. We make the rules in our society, and with enough political
will we can restrict this stuff.

~~~
Scea91
This is not used for tracking.

~~~
orthecreedence
...Yet?

------
cheetos
Is this unethical if everything is done locally and no data is stored or
resold?

~~~
kbart
_" Is this unethical if everything is done locally and no data is stored or
resold?"_

If it is hidden (no clear warning) and there's no way to opt-out, then yes, it
is unethical imho.

------
JensRantil
[http://www.cognimatics.com/Products/TrueView-
Demographics](http://www.cognimatics.com/Products/TrueView-Demographics)

------
sly010
This is one case where a tinfoil hat might actually be effective.

------
yegle
Is this new? Things like Affectiva has been out for a long time.

~~~
sbuttgereit
I was at a retail technology conference ~1998 and I remember IBM presenting
their work in the area; point of sale cameras was the topic.

Not as advanced as this, obviously, but industry has been thinking about ways
to do automated visual analysis like this for a long time.

~~~
bigbugbag
Can confirm, this was already a thing 20 years ago.

------
cmdrfred
I think the worst thing is that system assumed their gender.

------
PascLeRasc
From that thread I learned all you have to do to get away with evil is get the
technologists to argue over "logs" vs "code".

------
infectoid
LPT(1984): Keep a roll of small round dot stickers handy. Black dots are
harder to notice on the lens.

------
khasan222
Makes me wonder if this is something snapchat does whenever you look at some
of their featured stories.

------
johnmarcus
hrm....so as it turns out burkas really are the new expression of freedom.
whom would have guessed?

------
oelmekki
I think that now, my favorite subversive street action will be to put mirrors
in front of ads.

------
ddmma
Cognitive Services enabled applications, why so complicated? It's like spotted
an new hipo into the wild [https://azure.microsoft.com/en-
us/services/cognitive-service...](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-
us/services/cognitive-services/)

------
carapace
Has no one watched "Person of Interest"!? Just watch the show intro, that's
all you need to know.

Ubiquitous surveillance is only going to get more, uh, ubiquitous. It's the
end of privacy but also the end of crime...

------
kabes
Why are people so surprised by this? Imagine you're a company building digital
signage/advertising products. Wouldn't this be one of the first ideas that pop
in your head? The technology is out there for free...

------
lfender6445
just so im clear, this is someone in a pizza shop looking at a windows kiosk
with a camera?

it would be interesting to see the ad and how / if it changes based on who is
watching

------
Freeboots
Not many smiles :(

------
stefek99
Why it doesn't surprise me?

------
nom
Windows.. TeamViewer.. using the primary screen to display the ad.. and the
camera is not even hidden..

Amateurs.

I wouldn't be alarmed by this, they probably don't even now the accuracy of
the algorithm they are using or how to interpret the collected data correctly.

~~~
Rusky
Who says the same people set it up and receive the data?

------
pfarnsworth
The subsequent Twitter thread featuring @justkelly_ok et al. is probably the
worst things about Twitter all bundled up in in one. It's a pure cringefest.

~~~
mschaef
Agreed... I had a response written, realized life is too short, and just
closed the window before posting.

------
azm1
Its absurd people are outraged about something like this, relatively harmless
and at the same time use Facebook. The social network has your face, all your
life, moods, expressions, interests,personal conversation etc. Now THAT is
worrying and not some pizza shop which gathers stats to know what type of
customer is their frequent visitor.

~~~
nkkollaw
You're in control with Facebook. It's you who gives them the data.

If this is true, it's all stuff that they're taking by stealth.

~~~
e12e
I'm pretty sure my 300 friends have given fb more data about me, than I have.
[ed: and that doesn't even interlude the tracking from "like"-buttons etc]

~~~
nkkollaw
Sure, but you can choose not to be on Facebook.

~~~
bigbugbag
Which is not enough to not be on facebook or even preventing facebook from
profiling you.

I've chosen to not be on facebook and I've been shown an account in my name
made by someone else, pictures where I'm tagged, public posts and comments
mentioning me, private message mentioning me.

This is the tip of the iceberg, I have not been shown the facial features
facebook has associated to me, the "social graph" they have linked to me and
countless other internal facebook stuff the general public is supposed to not
know about.

