[HN Gopher] Facial recognition error message on vending machine ...
___________________________________________________________________
Facial recognition error message on vending machine sparks concern
at university
Author : whycome
Score : 231 points
Date : 2024-02-23 02:38 UTC (20 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (kitchener.ctvnews.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (kitchener.ctvnews.ca)
| ryandrake wrote:
| Glob of epoxy putty over the camera. Simple fix. Everyone's
| bloviating about how "concerned" they are, but nobody can even
| think of a simple step to protect themselves? This is a
| university with smart students in it?
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Someone didn't read the article. Also not a complete solution.
| ryandrake wrote:
| The article mentioned them trying ineffective solutions and
| complaining. Chewing gum and post-its?
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| They work perfectly in the short term. Ineffectual is
| allowing this kind of tech to be legal.
| roarcher wrote:
| Those are perfectly effective, they're just easily removed.
| Something permanent like epoxy would be crossing the line
| into vandalism. I imagine nobody wants to take one for the
| team, seeing as how they're on camera.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| That'd easily avoided by first putting a sticker over the
| hole and only later injecting some epoxy through the
| sticker. Do it neatly and they could even remove the
| sticker once the epoxy has hardened and paint over the
| former hole in a similar colour as the machine.
| gambiting wrote:
| It's still vandalism. Being really really really clever
| about damaging property you don't own doesn't make you
| any less liable for it.
| michaelt wrote:
| Putting a sticker on the camera inconveniences the
| college, who have to send someone to remove it. They are
| an innocent third party with no power to replace the
| vending machine with one without a camera.
|
| Putting epoxy on the camera inconveniences the vending
| machine owner, who has to replace it. They're the
| assholes who put the camera there in the first place, and
| when they replace the machine they can easily put in one
| with no camera.
|
| If you're going to engage in civil disobedience, why not
| do it right?
| gambiting wrote:
| >>Putting a sticker on the camera inconveniences the
| college, who have to send someone to remove it.
|
| The college doesn't care(or even know) about the facial
| recognition functionality, so presumably they don't care
| about this sticker either. If the sticker stops the
| machine from working, then the manufacturer would be
| called to fix it.
| gouggoug wrote:
| Sure, these are simple fix.
|
| They don't address the real issues though: (1) the use of
| facial recognition (2) without users consenting to it (3) and
| the resell of the data.
| neilv wrote:
| Making noise about this _isn 't_ a sign that students weren't
| smart enough to think to cover the camera. The article said
| that students had covered it.
|
| But that's only a very immediate reactive response. A more
| proactive and impactful response would be to hurt the companies
| involved (e.g., bad PR, loss of sales, machine recall costs,
| legal problems), put fear into other companies doing things
| like that, and hopefully also prompt long-lacking better
| privacy legislation.
|
| Hence, the noise.
| BHSPitMonkey wrote:
| The next model will just have the camera behind some part of
| the LCD.
| fifteen1506 wrote:
| Yup.
|
| And since screens can now output music (saw some high-tech
| article about it) it won't be long to also record sound.
|
| You know, just to identify the topics which resonate with
| better ad viewing.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Cheaper 'fix' is to rename the error message to 0x100014h.
| everdrive wrote:
| There are patents to put cameras inside the screens, so I
| imagine that this is what we'll see in the future.
| robinduckett wrote:
| Don't walk into any McDonalds then...
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Am a privacy advocate, yet think this might be an
| (understandable) overreaction.
|
| I remember older generation tech used in digital signage
| applications that wanted to identify ages and genders to show
| them appropriate content, say apparel for example. It ran locally
| and was well meaning (enough).
|
| Unfortunately in a world with Meta, ubiquitous telemetry, Ring
| doorbells, NSA, and data breaches and brokers, ... we can't trust
| anyone to do the right thing any longer.
|
| So this type of benign-ish functionality, which would have been
| all local just two decades ago, unfortunately now can't be
| trusted either.
|
| Still, I'm very happy to hear a young person or two being
| concerned. Last trip to a college campus there was mandatory app
| and no cash accepted in many places.
| NoPicklez wrote:
| I think the key difference here is that the digital signage
| technology you speak of, the recognition was a necessary
| requirement to show the appropriate content, clothing for
| example.
|
| In this case, the recognition doesn't do anything for the end
| user of the vending machine. It is purely data for other
| brokers to use. The vending machine didn't say to the user that
| people of their demographic were buying Diet Coke over normal
| Coke.
|
| Slapping facial recognition on something that didn't have it
| before, without any obvious functionality or benefit for the
| persons face being scanned is very much cause for concern, in
| my opinion.
| QuantumG wrote:
| I don't know why you think it's relevant. All that matters is
| the privacy law in the local jurisdiction. Some people will
| be fine with it, others wont. The real question is: what's
| the harm?
| NoPicklez wrote:
| Because I don't necessarily think that local privacy law is
| all that great in the digital age, nor is our ability to
| ensure that we're complying with it, especially when third
| parties are involved.
|
| People were clearly concerned about it, because the nature
| of its services weren't all that clear to the end user.
| Students protested, it was investigated and found that no
| PII information to taken, great no further action required.
|
| My point is that the situation was clearly cause for
| concern because we have a lack of trust in these
| technologies and those who use them.
|
| Case in point from the article "the embedded cameras inside
| Cadillac Fairview's digital information kiosks used facial
| recognition technology to record over five million images
| of shoppers at malls without their customers' knowledge or
| consent."
| pmontra wrote:
| Exactly. All the company gets is probably anonymized
| aggregate data like "Product X is bought by men 40% and
| women 60%", which would pass the GDPR and any privacy
| protection laws. The point is that we don't have access
| to the software so we have to trust them about doing
| (only) that kind of aggregations. Furthermore, as we
| don't trust companies anymore, we fear that cameras are
| used for other not innocuous purposes.
|
| By the way, does any 3rd party inspect the software of
| all those machines with cameras, before they are allowed
| to be installed? Probably not so it's their word against
| the suspicions of privacy wise people, until something
| goes wrong and some kind of investigation starts.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| This was an M&M (candy) machine. To really know, someone
| would need to audit the hardware and software, so we're only
| speculating. Can't definitively say without more info.
|
| Was trying to make the point that there is a potential
| justification for the functionality, though tenuous.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| I pulled the vendor's brochure; if you were curious what a
| vending machine would use this information for...
|
| They collect demographics on WHO is purchasing what items
| including gender, age, etc. They use this information for
| targeting advertising (inc. with "partner media brokers").
|
| They're also proud that when users install their app, it uses
| "gamification" to increase sales (whatever that means).
|
| See here, they're super proud of it too:
|
| https://a.storyblok.com/f/184550/x/e7435c019e/brochure-svm_g...
| disillusioned wrote:
| The machines use the charitably named "demographic sensor"
| which is obviously the embedded camera linked to a "facial
| recognition" application, BUT, it doesn't appear that it
| actually recognizes (or records) faces. Meaning, it's not
| linking your face to any online identity, or recording your
| face at all. In fact, the company is European and claims that
| their entire platform is GDPR compliant, which is... probably
| true?
|
| Rather, it throws out a series of guesses and confidence values
| of a person's age, gender, and race, and allow the planogram
| (and OOH advertising) to change dynamically based on that
| information.
|
| Which is not necessarily great, but also an entire order of
| magnitude less invasive than every interaction any casual user
| has on the internet with any ad ever. Or, frankly, with any POS
| system recording a repeat purchase from your credit card, from
| which motivated vendors can back into the rest of the
| demographic data.
|
| I'm not excusing it, but while the error reads "facial
| recognition", it's more "stereotyping enablement platform,"
| which, while only marginally better, is probably still better.
|
| It's also hilarious to think of the thing displaying the green
| M&M if you're a "probable" woman, and the red or yellow M&M if
| you're a "probable" man, and seeing how long it'd take for
| anyone to correlate the change.
| rwmj wrote:
| That's what the company claims, and maybe it's right, but how
| do we know? Do we have access to the source code? Will it
| change in future? You can be absolutely sure that if the
| company thought they could make more money by storing the
| photographs or somehow associating them with real identities
| then they would.
| tdudhhu wrote:
| It is invasive.
|
| In theory they can do something like "Why do you look so sad?
| Maybe a Mars can cheer you up!". This can be done while being
| GDPR complient but people don't like that. It creates a
| feeling that everything is watching you.
|
| Privacy is not about hiding things, it is about controlling
| what you want to show.
| rob74 wrote:
| "You don't look like yourself today... have a Snickers!"
| sleepingreset wrote:
| maybe I'm weird. I put small pieces of blue tape over all
| of the cameras in my dorm's vending machines for this
| reason, too.
| pimlottc wrote:
| "Feeling good? Celebrate with a Mars bar!"
| ImHereToVote wrote:
| I can't wait for the shitstorm when it starts suggesting
| grape soda to POC.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| What's a POC? And why would pushing grape soda at them
| cause a shitstorm?
| disillusioned wrote:
| Person of color. Because of the implication.
| hnbad wrote:
| Honestly, as a European some American racist tropes are
| truly baffling to me. Stereotypically Black people
| apparently enjoy watermelons, deep fried chicken and
| grape soda. In other words Black people allegedly like
| food humans often like and Americans managed to take than
| and make it racist.
|
| I'm not saying it's not used as a racist trope. I'm
| saying it's amazing how Americans managed to be racist
| enough to make such a non-issue racist.
| drekipus wrote:
| Engagement metrics effects on a corporate society
| narag wrote:
| _Stereotypically Black people apparently enjoy
| watermelons, deep fried chicken and grape soda._
|
| Check, check, check. Yum! TIL that I could pass for black
| in America. OK, maybe not.
|
| Unfortunately grape soda is almost impossible to find in
| Madrid, I've only tried it a couple of times, first in
| Rota Base, and loved it.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| My experience has been that european cultures are
| approximately as racist as the US, they just have
| different histories and dynamics so it comes out
| differently. There is a lot less visible reckoning with
| race as well, which makes it easier to assume or pretend
| that there are no problems with it.
| rchaud wrote:
| The racism is in the context of deprivation. Watermelon
| in and of itself is neutral. In America however, freed
| slaves did not have access to good agricultural land that
| could grow many fruits and vegetables. Watermelon grows
| on poor quality soil, so it was available to the poorest
| black sharecropper.
|
| Because of this, it became associated with black people,
| and thereby with criminality, low education and poverty
| among the dominant culture that created this sort of
| pattern-matching.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Good. That at least will turn public opinion against this
| concept.
|
| The whole notion of not even being allowed to see the same
| ads as your fellow man in a public space because you are
| involuntarily shunted into some kind of cohort is
| disgusting, regardless of what is being used to decide
| that.
|
| Imagine walking somewhere and seeing all the digital ad
| screens around you switch to basket ball events or Kentucky
| Fried Chicken where they were showing tailor made suits
| just a second before. (Or ads for a pre-emptive rectal exam
| or mobility aids.)
| oniony wrote:
| It's not a camera, it's an optical sensor, lol.
| codethief wrote:
| > In fact, the company is European and claims that their
| entire platform is GDPR compliant, which is... probably true?
|
| I don't see how it is. The mere processing of my personal
| information (age, gender, race - doesn't matter that it's
| only a guess/estimate) without my explicit consent or any
| contractual need should already represent a violation of
| GDPR.
| mateo1 wrote:
| Honestly the whole thing would be funny if it's wasn't part
| of the dystopian society we're building. Is this...
| innovation now? What are we trying to optimize society for?
| Extracting maximum rents? But were will the money come from
| if everyone is doing the same thing and producing nothing of
| value?
| mrighele wrote:
| > In fact, the company is European and claims that their
| entire platform is GDPR compliant, which is... probably true?
|
| Is a picture of my face necessary to sell me a chocolate bar
| ? I would say not, and if they take it without asking consent
| before I would say that it is not GDPR compliant.
| gherkinnn wrote:
| Vending machines covered by a large screen stand for everything
| I hate about contemporary tech.
|
| They improve absolutely nothing from a buyer's perspective.
| Every step of the transaction is made worse. You can't glance
| at the entire inventory. You never know how much of an item is
| left. The machine does not reliably know how much of an item is
| left. Every interaction lags. And in return I get ads and mini
| games. Just so some C-suite cretin (guess what the C in C*O
| stands for) can show his little cretin friends how innovative
| his farts are.
|
| It is late. I am hungry. My train departs in 2 minutes. Please,
| I just want a bloody Snickers.
|
| These companies are a blight.
| callahad wrote:
| > _They improve absolutely nothing from a buyer 's
| perspective._
|
| It's the "good ads" argument -- this machine can guess your
| age/gender and offer up items most purchased by your
| demographic, all the while feeding that data back to the
| vendor. Who wouldn't love that? :-/
|
| More seriously, this has been a standard capability in
| vending machines, fast food menu systems, and digital signage
| in general for over a decade. Check out this ad from 2012 for
| Intel's AIM Suite for an example of how this stuff is
| pitched: https://youtube.com/watch?v=KdMIp2vQjG8
|
| "Is the viewer a teenage girl? Then change to content to
| highlight a back-to-school shoe sale a few doors down. Is it
| a senior male? Then why not tell him about the golf club sale
| at the sporting goods store?"
| dataviz1000 wrote:
| The technique in restaurants is to track the number of
| items sold, add innovative special dishes every day or
| week, and at the end of every week or month, remove the
| worst selling items on the menu and replace it with one of
| the special dishes. This over time creates demand. Vending
| machines can do the same. Remove the worst selling item and
| replace it with anything. After a time, the vending machine
| will only sell items with demand for that location.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| And this requires absolutely zero screens, cameras, or
| demographic data collection of any kind. Just track the
| inventory. This isn't new; I would be extremely surprised
| if Japanese vending machines didn't do just that for
| decades already.
|
| But those cameras aren't there because of the vending
| machine. That is just a convenient platform. This is
| about ads, and tracking, and data brokering. We had
| digital ad screens placed on the platforms at train
| stations in the Netherlands with a camera hole a few
| years ago, and the advertising company swore that those
| cameras would not be activated, for now, until the legal
| side was resolved, or until they could get away with it
| without anyone noticing.
|
| It feels icky.
| Loughla wrote:
| While I agree with you, the benefit is that it's
| automatic. That's the difference. It doesn't require
| anyone to count and track anything. It doesn't require
| thought or planning. It just happens. It doesn't require
| money spent on people to keep track of.
|
| Whereas classic vending machine inventory systems
| requires an human person to track the re-fills or sales.
|
| A happy medium would be no stupid cameras, but with
| electronic tracking and reporting of what is sold. That
| has to be a thing that can be done, right?
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > Whereas classic vending machine inventory systems
| requires an human person to track the re-fills or sales.
|
| Sorry?
|
| You order by the # of the item.
|
| This is recorded in NVRAM/sent to cloud nowadays.
|
| There is absolutely no need to involve any human being in
| the _process of tracking sales_.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > the benefit is that it's automatic
|
| I wouldn't trust this automatic data for shit. When's the
| last time you used a vending machine that did not have
| any problems? The classic meme of people beating on a
| machine because something got stuck. How is that
| inventory managed? Does the inventory decrement every
| time someone pushes buttons to vend an item? Is it
| tracked by weight? Who enters the weight?
|
| This seems like a system ripe for abuse by the
| manufacture on needing maintenance like the McDonald's
| soft server machine.
| pc86 wrote:
| Your happy medium is what happens today in normal vending
| machines without cameras or giant screens. The normal
| boring glass-front ones that barely take credit cards.
|
| The guy with a clipboard counting how many Diet Coke cans
| are missing hasn't been the way these things are managed
| since probably 2003.
| exe34 wrote:
| My experience is the opposite - vending machines tend to
| run out of the really popular stuff and they just don't
| replace it until most of the crap stuff is gone.
| everdrive wrote:
| The "good ads" people need a "hammer to the face."
| alwa wrote:
| Did you ever have the pleasure of encountering the US
| drugstore that replaced the entire set of doors of its entire
| refrigerated section with hulking, bright, animated, human-
| height-and-ultra-heavy TV screens?
|
| [0] https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/12/business/walgreens-
| freezer-sc...
| stavros wrote:
| Not to mention the genius of putting a heat generator right
| in front of the fridge.
| jowea wrote:
| I wonder if people opening it to look for something that
| is out of stock has a large effect.
| itronitron wrote:
| No measurable effects were observed on the items not in
| stock.
| ramenbytes wrote:
| Yes, though at the time I believe it was static (no ads) so
| I was just left wondering why they felt the need to put up
| a TV screen showing what I'd see through the glass. It may
| have obscured whether something was in stock, but I forget.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| _To Avakian, it's simply an expected growing pain. Cooler
| Screens plans to educate customers about the digital
| displays and launch features like voice recognition, so
| shoppers can ask about prices or item locations.
|
| "This is the future of retail and shopping," Avakian said._
|
| If this is our future of "education", these parasitic, data
| grubbing companies can fuck right off along with any larger
| company that supports them.
|
| Nothing whatsoever about this in the least bit improves the
| time you spend grabbing something from a cooler. It's
| blatant enshitification of a very basic buying task that
| need not involve any further interface, and it so obviously
| does nothing but try to squeeze more money from said basic
| interaction for nobody's benefit except Walgreens, the
| companies paying for their grubby little digital visuals,
| and the scum-loaded company that's selling this garbage to
| them.
|
| I can almost imagine a future in which even the tissue of
| toilet paper comes covered in "engagement" ad visuals
| impregnated into its material through some sort of micro-
| display technology. At last in that case it would get
| exactly the engagement it most deserves and afterwards go
| where it really belongs.
| gherkinnn wrote:
| The amount of effort that goes in to syncing up the
| contents of the fridge with what it is on the screen must
| be staggering. And not for a moment do I believe it
| reliably detects empty stock or the placement of the
| contents. Not to mention dealing with the extra heat it
| gives off.
|
| Countless hours wasted and it is still worse than a glass
| panel in every way.
|
| Not unlike orchestrating a dozen microservices and three
| Dooms worth of code to render a simple form to the three
| users a typical application has.
| pyrale wrote:
| The CEO at the end of the video talking about "educating"
| the consumers about the benefits of this new system really
| drives the point home that a large part of current tech is
| made and paid for by douchebags.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| It turns out that whole thing was a grift where the former
| CEO left and founded the startup and then "sold" the Cooler
| Screens to his friends back at Walgreens. The new CEO came
| in and realized how dumb and expensive the screens were,
| killed the deal and is now being sued by the grifter.
| MarkSweep wrote:
| A little bit of an aside, but the absolute gol CNN website
| is impressive:
|
| > We apologize, but your web browser is configured in such
| a way that it is preventing this site from implementing
| required components that protect your privacy and allow you
| to view and change your privacy settings. This
| functionality is required for privacy legislation in your
| region.
|
| > We recommend you use a different browser or disable the
| "EasyList Cookie" filter from your "Content Filtering"
| settings (found under "Settings" -> "Shields" in the Brave
| Browser).
| euroderf wrote:
| Welcome to an outer ring of hell. Brought to you by... Moore
| Slaw.
| alwa wrote:
| That's quite the brochure. My favorite selling point is the way
| you can make the machine display products _that it 's doesn't
| actually have inside_, sell them, and give the punter a digital
| IOU instead of the soda they tried to buy...
|
| > "Customizable UI design - Product selection can be extended
| to include products not physically in the machine. Consumers
| can store them in Invenda Wallet [a mobile app] and redeem them
| somewhere else."
|
| Somehow managing to turn a convenience-driven impulse buy into
| an additional chore to redeem later.
|
| At the end of the day, there must be some angle I'm not
| understanding or these features wouldn't actually drive sales.
| I wonder if the idea is to vend digital products? Drive traffic
| to nearby physical stores through some kind of targeted digital
| coupon? Has anyone seen this kind of thing in the wild?
| rob74 wrote:
| Wow... the whole point of a vending machine is to get a soda
| when you want to have a soda, if you wanted to have a soda
| _later_ you could get it (usually a lot cheaper) at a
| supermarket? I hope there 's at least a warning message where
| you can abort your purchase before you get the "voucher"
| instead of the actual product?
| bombcar wrote:
| The only thing that makes sense is referring you to a
| nearby similar machine.
|
| But even that is madness.
|
| I think the era of vending machine is mostly over, but
| nobody is admitting it.
| vvvvvvvvvvvv wrote:
| > I think the era of vending machine is mostly over, but
| nobody is admitting it.
|
| Why? Aren't they more practical than ever?
| tjoff wrote:
| Maybe it's nothing but a scam?
|
| Place it somewhere where there are enough people that haven't
| tried it before and trick them into buying something they
| don't want. No one will ever use it more than once.
| jowea wrote:
| You're getting a soda's worth of money from every person
| who is tricked, and some will notice the trick before it
| happens or hear about it. I'm guessing it's not worth the
| price of the machine, tech, install costs and opportunity
| costs of a normal vending machine.
| bombcar wrote:
| The real scam is the ones that require you to load a card
| instead of using them directly. Usually seen at newer
| laundromats and such - arcades, too.
|
| The most scammy make it so you can only load the card in
| multiples of ten but the machines all cost prime amounts.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| All the scooter companies are trying that load by $5 and
| $10 thing now. Squeezing the last few drops from the
| stone I guess
| gumby wrote:
| Can't believe they missed the opportunity to have the non-
| present purchase represented by an NFT. A buzzword overlooked
| by Marketing!
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| >> "Customizable UI design - Product selection can be
| extended to include products not physically in the machine.
| Consumers can store them in Invenda Wallet [a mobile app] and
| redeem them somewhere else."
|
| Speaking only for myself, this would not be long-term
| profitable for the vending machine company, as the cost of
| them fixing the boot-sized hole in the machine would be far
| higher than the $2 they stole from me.
| red_admiral wrote:
| Detecting "gender" by facial recognition on a 21st century uni
| campus in the USA ... what could _possibly_ go wrong and cause
| a massive media meltdown?
| thebruce87m wrote:
| Needs a TSA full body scanner to get the real demographics of
| drink sales.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| You just assumed someone's gender by the form of their
| genitals.
|
| /s but...
| RockRobotRock wrote:
| In Japan, facial recognition vending machines have been used to
| make product recommendations and collect statisics since 2010:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2hwnGrn3go
| ssss11 wrote:
| Oh my god I can't buy a mars bar without the world trying to
| send me targeted ads
| heads wrote:
| I'm sure this is real but just for fun I'm entertaining the idea
| that someone is trolling -- either with a fun dialog title or the
| app name.
|
| I worked at a company in the late 2000s that moved to an office
| with automatic urinals. These were fairly novel at the time and
| had a matte black plastic unit with a flush handle that also had
| a shiny window made of dark, IR transparent plastic. It was
| clearly some kind of proximity sensor for the autoflush but some
| joker made an official "do not touch the cameras" sign that wound
| a few people up.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I know the HN guidelines say not to comment that someone hasn't
| read the article, but the comments section can be a little
| useless when literally all of the top comments I see are from
| posters who appear not to have read the article.
|
| In summary (and, in fairness, these technical details are pretty
| far down the article):
|
| > The machines are owned by MARS and the manufacturer is Invenda.
|
| > MARS did not respond to requests for comment from CTV.
|
| > Invenda also did not respond to CTV's requests for comment but
| told Stanley in an email "the demographic detection software
| integrated into the smart vending machine operates entirely
| locally."
|
| > "It does not engage in storage, communication, or transmission
| of any imagery or personally identifiable information," it
| continued.
|
| > According to Invenda's website, the Smart Vending Machines can
| detect the presence of a person, their estimated age and gender.
| The website said the "software conducts local processing of
| digital image maps derived from the USB optical sensor in real-
| time, without storing such data on permanent memory mediums or
| transmitting it over the Internet to the Cloud."
| moi2388 wrote:
| Yes, the actual image data doesn't get sent, but all the
| information gained from said image data does.
| jjav wrote:
| > The website said the "software conducts local processing of
| digital image maps derived from the USB optical sensor in real-
| time, without storing such data on permanent memory mediums or
| transmitting it over the Internet to the Cloud."
|
| The most important thing to keep in mind about clauses like
| this is that at any time it's only one software update away
| from changing the behavior and suddenly starting to send
| everything. You'd never know. (And: That point in time may be
| in the past.)
| ourmandave wrote:
| By purchasing this candy bar, you agree to our updated Terms
| of Service.
| bombcar wrote:
| Please drink verification can.
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| > "It does not engage in storage, communication, or
| transmission of any imagery or personally identifiable
| information,"
|
| Probably bullshit.
|
| Firstly, "personally identifiable information" is usually
| defined very specifically, like 'we didn't record their social
| security number'.
|
| Secondly, they send a bunch of information extracted from the
| image and they probably store the raw images on the machines
| which are then manually extracted at some point. Like
| photocopier that store a scan of everything put on the bed in
| its own hard-drive.
| Cheer2171 wrote:
| An image of a face is literally personally identifiable
| information. A face is a unique identifier.
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| This should be an obvious truth. But people who install
| secret facial recognition in vending machines are also
| likely to be the type of people would exclude face images
| from their definition of PII.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| > A face is a unique identifier.
|
| Guess you've never heard of twins?
| skydhash wrote:
| > Guess you've never heard of twins?
|
| Guess you've never heard of names? Or date of birth?
| Personal doesn't mean unique.
| mapreduce wrote:
| >>> A face is a unique identifier.
|
| >> Guess you've never heard of twins?
|
| > Guess you've never heard of names? Or date of birth?
| Personal doesn't mean unique.
|
| Your parent commenter is contesting the "A face is a
| unique identifier" part. They are not contesting "A face
| is personal". Of course face should be PII but at the
| same time it is not a unique identifier, so your parent
| commenter is correct and you are correct too. But you are
| replying to an objection that was never made.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| I quoted the exact part I was commenting on, maybe you
| missed that?
| kibwen wrote:
| What on Earth has ever given you the idea that companies should
| ever be trusted to tell the truth when money is involved?
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| What on Earth has ever given you the idea that I believe
| companies should be trusted in this regard?
|
| I just quoted the most relevant technical details of what is
| actually presented in the article given that so much of the
| initial commentary when I first saw this post were from
| people who clearly hadn't read the article.
| notRobot wrote:
| I hate that with time there is just going to be more and more
| covert non-consentual facial recognition everywhere. It should be
| outlawed, but obviously that does not align with the interests of
| the powerful so it'll never happen.
| stainablesteel wrote:
| there's a lot of roads all leading to the same place, there
| needs to be a constitutional amendment about the right to own
| your own data, and if someone collects it from you they need to
| pay you to collect it, and you should receive a tax on any
| transaction where its sold
|
| at least that's my suggestion
|
| if people collected my information and sent me a check in the
| mail every month for a decent amount, i might not be so
| annoyed.
| Nihilartikel wrote:
| I'm looking forward to a growing culture of mask wearing in
| public spaces.
|
| It worked in Venice, and what a fine method of self expression!
| EMCymatics wrote:
| Worked at a place that put your last four of your ssn for the
| vending machine. I really hated that.
| hexo wrote:
| ELI5 please
| bombcar wrote:
| Some places (colleges were very bad about this) would use
| your SSN as both an ID and a password - so to buy at the
| cafeteria you'd swipe your student ID and your PIN was the
| last four of your social.
|
| Some workplaces did it too. It's mostly gone now, but pieces
| still remain.
| oefrha wrote:
| Given that many college students don't even have SSNs
| (international students have no reason to get one until
| they want to work somewhere), this makes zero sense. What
| college does this?
| bombcar wrote:
| It was standard 20-30 years ago. International students
| would be "assigned" some number that may or may not
| overlap with an actual SSN.
|
| Shit was wack, yo.
| c22 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure many big box places like Home Depot and Walmart
| are using _actual_ facial recognition on everyone who is in or
| near any of their stores. This vending machine sounds pretty
| benign by comparison.
| jjav wrote:
| Just because something can be worse, does not make a bad thing
| benign.
| c22 wrote:
| _By comparison..._
|
| That is to say, my comment was meant to _inform_ the
| concerned reader about other dastardly actors, not to excuse
| the behavior of the vending machine. (Not sure I have the
| authority even to make such an excuse.)
| fragmede wrote:
| But you phrased it in such a way that downplayed the
| vending machine doing it, the three reaction you got, which
| implies there's a different wording that would have gotten
| your point across better.
| c22 wrote:
| Perhaps, but one of the rules of this forum is to apply
| the most charitable reading of comments, so I don't
| always try that hard to craft perfect responses.
| neilv wrote:
| > _The website said the "software conducts local processing of
| digital image maps derived from the USB optical sensor in real-
| time,_
|
| Is the "USB optical sensor" really a _hidden camera_ , and
| "digital image maps" is _images from the hidden camera_?
|
| If so, then are they also being weaselly in the rest of the
| sentence?
|
| > _without storing such data on permanent memory mediums or
| transmitting it over the Internet to the Cloud."_
| zoky wrote:
| It's probably something like Apple's Face ID sensor, which is a
| "camera" in the strict sense of the word but it captures a
| depth map rather than an image. I'm willing to believe that
| they aren't transmitting images or even raw depth maps over the
| Internet (for one thing, it would be a lot of data and it's
| hard to conceive of what the use of such data would be), but
| they are almost certainly attempting to correlate demographic
| information, or possibly even individual users, with specific
| purchasing patterns.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| They don't have to transmit images. It's enough to generate a
| unique hash that can track your activity in the presence of
| the panopticons. Sweeten the deal even more by capturing your
| IMSI for future reference.
| SuperNinKenDo wrote:
| You don't need to transmit anything over the wire, someone
| has to restock the things. Unclear what the relationship is
| there.
| nusl wrote:
| I wonder where the line in the sand exists for what people feel
| is "okay" tracking and "not okay" tracking. Here it seems to be
| that almost universally, the students dislike the facial
| recognition. Many folks I've spoken to otherwise don't care about
| being tracked online. I suppose people are more sensitive to
| being tracked when it transitions into the real world and becomes
| more "real."
| giarc wrote:
| I don't mind being targeted online since it changes the ads I
| see from "Acai berry smoothies" to "beach vacations". Something
| I am not interested in, to something I am interested in (due to
| browsing history). That makes my experience better and I
| understand the trade off while using a free product (Google
| Maps, Facebook etc etc).
|
| However, the difference in this case is that the vending
| company (or someone along the chain) is using it to serve
| demographic ads to the customer of the vending machine. I still
| have to pay for the product and it's not changing non targeted
| ads to targeted ads (there were no ads before). I'm sure they
| aren't passing along some of the ad revenue to me since there's
| no competition (I'm sure all vending machines in the area are
| owned by the same company). So this is just a source of extra
| revenue for the company and serves no purpose to the user.
| nusl wrote:
| All right. I try my best to keep my adverts as random as
| possible(if they appear at all), since somehow it feels like
| I'm being passively influenced by viewing the same sort of
| adverts suggesting I buy stuff repeatedly.
|
| The way they're sticking ads on everything with or without
| tracking is pretty annoying. I hope they lose money with the
| tech they had to dev and install vs ad returns.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Interesting. Instead I block most ads (the most unethical
| ones, if I can discern that), problem solved.
| KMnO4 wrote:
| There's an implied consent. I _know_ that creating a Gmail
| account means that Google has access to all my emails. By using
| Gmail, I'm relatively aware that they're building an ad profile
| on me, and I implicitly consent to that.
|
| But if I found out they're collecting the bloodwork pdfs my
| doctor sends and selling them to insurance companies, that
| would be objectively beyond any reasonable consent.
|
| If you're selling me M&Ms, I have a very very low tolerance for
| what I consider appropriate data collection.
| nusl wrote:
| You know, though I am not sure of how well-known it is
| outside of tech circles.
|
| I agree with the second point. Facial recognition for
| demographic stats seems kinda reasonable if it's anonymised
| properly, but people don't like their photo being taken
| without knowledge of it.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| As multimodal AI becomes more prevalent and commercial AI
| attendants become the dominant user interface, there's going to
| be a basic expectation of object, gesture and facial recognition.
|
| "Welcome back to McDonald's, Mr. Beattie, would you like your
| usual?" _Nods head and grunts while sending text_ "Very good.
| I'll charge your card on record and send a notification when your
| meal is ready. Thank you!"
|
| This will all require an integrated camera and microphone, and
| maybe other sensors as well. All turned on 24/7. This isn't
| science fiction, it's just a few years away from every day
| reality.
|
| So, in other words, get used to it.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| That's assuming _a lot_ of givens.
| antfarm wrote:
| That's not a camera, it's a _Demographic Sensor(tm)_.
| ale42 wrote:
| In that case I want the Sensor(tm) to be physically unable to
| send out actual images to the computer that handles the vending
| machine, so no software update can actually start doing
| something else than they claim it to do originally.
| antfarm wrote:
| I wouldn't even want them to use my biometric data or even
| turn on the camera at all without asking for my consent.
|
| And in that case my answer would be a decisive NO.
| kypro wrote:
| Isn't facial recognition wide spread in the US yet?
|
| In the UK we're already using it everywhere. Most stores and
| checkout systems have it. It's used in CCTV across the country.
| It's used by police to identify protestors. Schools in my area
| even install spyware on kids phones to monitor them and their
| families.
|
| I can't imagine anyone would mind having being identified by a
| vending machine here lol... What's the risk?
| fifteen1506 wrote:
| This isn't a noisy adult snitching to whoever walks by what you
| bought.
|
| This is a info collector which potentially disseminates
| information across the world, to sell better ads.
|
| Meanwhile, categories of you are being made. Do you buy a soda
| every friday at 05:00? "Party Animal".
|
| Or not. Who knows. Maybe they just spend the extra dollars on
| the software and camera because they really do want to lose
| money on it.
| scohesc wrote:
| I knew the UK was going sharply downhill with the surveillance
| state nonsense, but that far already?
|
| Wow - I have even more respect for the people who risk their
| lives to damage and tear down government surveillance cameras
| for the common good.
| kypro wrote:
| People here don't care.
|
| When I read the story that schools in my area had been
| installing spyware on students phones I assumed it was some
| kind of isolated thing. But my GF works in schools so I asked
| her if she knew of this app and she was like, "oh yeah, all
| the kids have it".
|
| I found this utterly insane but she seemed to think it was a
| good thing if it could be used to protect kids. And I guess I
| get the argument, but you could say the same thing about the
| government installing CCTV in everyone's homes... You need to
| draw lines, especially when there's an expectation of
| privacy.
|
| This is my concern with facial recognition in shops too. If I
| go into a shop I expect people to see my face, so a simple
| CCTV system seems fine. I even expect people who know me
| might recognise who I am, so again, if a human being I've
| interacted with before identifies me on the CCTV system I'm
| okay with this. What I don't think people expect is to be
| identified by some automated national biometric system which
| checks to see if you've ever stolen anything before so it can
| alert security, while also trying to understand your emotions
| and individual purchasing habits.
|
| I used to work for a large highstreet retail org and was
| literally pitched on a system which could identify our
| customers and tell us how they feel about their shopping
| experience and their shopping habits.
|
| But like I say, no one cares. I've spoken about this with
| people so often and they act like I'm some kind of privacy
| lunatic. That said, people here get very animated if someone
| can access data they've personally shared to Facebook and
| made publicly available.
| zilti wrote:
| Some people choose to blindly trust the government and
| decide whatever it does is for the best and has no
| downsides. To quote someone I asked (unsuccessfully) for a
| referendum signature against a surveillance law, "If I
| can't trust the government anymore, then who can I trust?"
| bborud wrote:
| Nothing a bit of superglue can't fix.
| rpaddock wrote:
| In 2018 Renesas had a "Facial Expression Kit Giveaway" contest
| and I was one of the winners. It was the "RZ Omron Facial
| Expression Kit giveaway". RZ being one of their newer, at the
| time, Micro lines. I had to sign an affidavit to get my prize,
| which I did. Never did use it and it eventually went to a local
| Hamfest. Their example code was a vending machine.
|
| This is the only related item I could find today:
|
| "OMRON Develops Real-Time Facial Expression Estimation
| Technology"
|
| https://www.omron.com/media/press/2012/10/e1023.html
| SuperNinKenDo wrote:
| This stuff drives me mental, but the article ends up not being
| quite the black pill it could be. Nice to see students fighting
| back at the grassroots, the University (hopefully) acting, and
| people feeling enpowered to do something under the law.
|
| We have to keep pushing for this stuff to become less and less
| normalised, and also for penalties to become more and more
| serious. When that happens, people will continue to feel more
| enpowered to fight this stuff. We should also make sure laws are
| clear that people have the right to "vandalise" such devices. In
| my opinion taking a bat to one of these things should at least be
| defensible in court.
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