People’s shazam has arrived.
Two Harvard students paired a pair of connected glasses Ray-Ban Meta with a facial recognition service named Pimeyesthus demonstrating the possibility of instantly collecting personal information on the slightest passerby, without their knowledge.
Called I-XRAY, this demo only legally assembles technologies already available on the market. Technically, AnhPhu Nguyen and Caine Ardayfio, the two Harvard students, used the streaming capability of Ray-Ban Meta glasses to broadcast a live stream on Instagram. A computer vision program (a branch of AI specializing in visual recognition) monitors this live video and then recognizes faces. These photos are then sent to public databases to find names, addresses, phone numbers and even relatives. This information is then sent back to a mobile application allowing our two students to recognize anyone.
Worrying, isn’t it? As easy as it is to set up, such a device could be used for theft, harassment or any other crime. The duo of little geniuses suggests that you counter this by asking the funny service that is PimEyes to block your photo from any online facial recognition. Here’s how to “opt-out” this new kind of threat to our privacy.
