Face-verify.js: Monitoring who is physically looking at a website

Am I the only one who doesn't quite understand the point?

I would assume you wouldn't only use this tech to secure information. But I don't see really how this adds any security when software cams exist.

Plus you have other issues, like people like me who work in low light, or picture frames in the shot, etc.

Cool hobby project though.

There's something about software like this that really creeps me out, even though I realize it's not ridiculously advanced (i.e. it's way more common than I think) anymore. That might just be a personal aversion, though. I can imagine useful scenarios for this even if I get a bit of an icky feeling from it.

My co-founder and I have talked about things like this as an "anti-cheating" measure (we developed a take-home assessment platform), but it always feels way too overboard and invasive for an exaggerated problem (and I'm just against it in pretty much every way imaginable).

Interestingly this somehow feels better than overt measures like ProctorU, but that's an emotional reaction and not a logical one. In some ways it's probably much worse.

Some more info about ProctorU (for others who haven't heard about it):

https://www.chronicle.com/article/Behind-the-Webcams-Watchfu...

> Rather than one proctor sitting at the head of a physical classroom and roaming the aisles every once in a while, remote proctors peer into a student's home, seize control of her computer, and stare at her face for the duration of a test, reading her body language for signs of impropriety.

That article is from 2013, I wonder how much of this is now partially automated (i.e. relying on human remote proctors)?

I can see from a privacy standpoint, this may cause some concern.

However, from a credit card processor point of view and combating "friendly fraud". This could be an excellent tool to prevent that.

For example. The scenario where a transaction has been processed and 6 weeks later, it is disputed because the card holder doesn't recognise the transaction. Perhaps the wife used the husbands card whilst he was in the shower, for [insert candy crush clone].

A capture of the users face would definitely help the merchant win the representment against Visa/Mastercard.

In a scenario where goods are being shipped cross-border. Lets say from China to the US and it's for a large amount. Then this could be an extra step, where the data hasn't passed a certain threshold and thus further information is required. Having a real-time snapshot and validation to prove the card holder is legitimate. Ensures the transaction goes through.

Ultimately, I do understand it's about weighing privacy concerns. But that doesn't mean some good can't come out from this.

Yeah, this whole thing seems a bit silly. You can't trust the webcam to be real or even functional.

And even if you could trust the entire website-to-webcam path end-to-end, you can't trust the image the hardware is reading. There's a reason that other face recognition systems like Windows Hello require that you have an IR camera, so that it knows it's not just looking at a photograph of a person.