This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Lesson learned: don't name your surveillance tool EvilFaceRecognition.exe
As facial recognition becomes easier and cheaper, you are going to find it in all sorts of things. From your refrigerator to your child’s toy. Better get used to it, because that is the future. We should all invest in stickers to place on all the cameras, or guillotines… for the tech ceos
On the one hand, I can totally understand that there is a difference between recognizing a face and recognizing your face. Algorithms that recognize a face are really easy to implement now.
On the other hand, though, why should a vending machine need to recognize a face? So it shuts off it's lighting when no one is looking at it? I'm not sure if there is any practical benefit besides some project manager justifying a new feature with buzzword-compliant tech.
I believe the company when they say there is nothing problematic here, but they deserve the bad press for thinking it would be a good idea in the first place.
A simple motion sensor would have sufficed. A classic example of someone getting excited about a Tech buzzword and cramming it into a product.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A university in Canada is expected to remove a series of vending machines from campus after a student discovered a sign they used facial recognition technology.
"The technology acts as a motion sensor that detects faces, so the machine knows when to activate the purchasing interface — never taking or storing images of customers."
"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."
Representatives for the University of Waterloo, Invenda Group, Adaria Vending Services, and Mars did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment sent over the weekend ahead of publication.
Facial recognition technology on college campuses is an ongoing tension point for students and staff members, with examples popping up globally.
Tensions heightened in March 2020 when students at dozens of US universities protested facial recognition on college campuses, The Guardian reported.
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