Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A crashed advertisement reveals logs of a facial recognition system

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 550 posts

Re: A crashed advertisement reveals logs of a facial recognition system

#221

Post by csmattryder »

mattcoles wrote: post #206
samtho wrote: post #43

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 ap…

Do you feel it was ethical to work on that?

I work on digital signage, our product isn't using facial expression recognition yet, but it has been asked and will eventually be a part of the system.

What's the difference between this and an anonymised dataset? No PII is tracked, it's just looking at you and calculating what emotion you're likely feeling to show more targeted advertising.

I mean, I'm personally against it but we've got to prove a higher and higher ROI to justify the cost of digital signage, this leads to just that.

Re: A crashed advertisement reveals logs of a facial recognition system

#222

Post by bigbugbag »

jabagonuts wrote: post #68
alsetmusic wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 anyth…

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!

Some countries have law making it illegal to give bogus information about you, with hefty fines and jail time.

Re: A crashed advertisement reveals logs of a facial recognition system

#223

Post by bigbugbag »

grogenaut wrote: post #167
alsetmusic wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 anyth…

Really? I say "Nope" constantly and they're like "no problem" or "it's way easier to look up refunds that way" which is true depending on the store.

> "it's way easier to look up refunds that way"

"Thanks good to know, from now on I'll go buy at a business where this artificial limitation does not exist."

Re: A crashed advertisement reveals logs of a facial recognition system

#224

Post by bigbugbag »

closeparen wrote: post #81
cyberferret wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 quest…

Isn't it a credit card security feature? That's what it's for at gas stations.

Correction, that what they pretend it is for at gas stations.

99,99% of the time when asked a piece of personal data it is for cross-referencing or other privacy invading purpose.

Re: A crashed advertisement reveals logs of a facial recognition system

#225

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

cyberferret wrote: post #7

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?

A UK-based company called Amscreen make a similar system: http://www.amscreen.eu/products/ds24-2/

(If the "Am" part of the name seems familiar it's because it's Alan Sugar's son)

They installed one at a local petrol station so they lost my business. Perhaps I should be more vocal about it.

Re: A crashed advertisement reveals logs of a facial recognition system

#226

Post by TeMPOraL »

ffriend wrote: post #208

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 suf…

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.

Re: A crashed advertisement reveals logs of a facial recognition system

#227

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

mysterydip wrote: post #28
tyingq wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 The movie was released in 2002, so fairly prescient.

"Your video will play after this ad" oh the irony

A targeted ad nonetheless. Irony indeed.

Re: A crashed advertisement reveals logs of a facial recognition system

#229

Post by bigbugbag »

csmattryder wrote: post #221
mattcoles wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you feel it was ethical to work on that?

I work on digital signage, our product isn't using facial expression recognition yet, but it has been asked and will eventually be a part of the system. What's the difference between this and an anonymised dataset? No PII is tracked, it's just looking at you and calculating what emotion you're likely feeling to show more targeted advertising. I mean, I'm personally against it but we've got to prove a higher and highe…

If you were actually against it you would not take part of making this happen.

Inadvertently spill the name of the company making this and those wanting to use it to the public so they can receive their well deserved backlash.

Re: A crashed advertisement reveals logs of a facial recognition system

#230

Post by dagw »

ludjer wrote: post #163
avg_dev wrote: post #2

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

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 hav…

If it is in the public you have no privacy.

Norwegian law disagrees with you.

Post reply on HN