Real Mask Designed To Block AI Facial Recognition ‘from All Angles’?

Claim:

Photograph documents an actual mask used to block AI-based facial recognition “from all angles”?

Rating:

What’s True

A product designer created the mask to make “it possible to become unrecognizable for facial recognition software.” However …

What’s Undetermined

It’s unclear if this mask was produced and sold commercially, or was simply a thought experiment.

A photograph of a person wearing a black, hooded sweatshirt and a clear, seemingly pleated mask shared to Reddit on Sept. 23, 2024, was described as documenting a “mask made to block AI based facial recognition from all angles.” At the time of this publication, the photo had received more than 99,000 upvotes on the platform.

A product designer indeed conceived of the mask to make “it possible to become unrecognizable for facial recognition software.” However, it’s unclear whether this mask was actually produced and sold commercially, or was simply a thought experiment, which means this claim is a mixture of knowns and unknowns.

A Google keyword search for “anti AI facial recognition mask” revealed that the photo shown in the Reddit post was featured in a 2019 article published by Business Insider article describing clothing designed to “trick facial recognition software into thinking you’re not a human.”

According to the article, the lens-shaped mask was created by product designer Jip van Leeuwenstein while he was a student at Utrecht School of the Arts in the Netherlands.

The Civil Liberties Union for Europe also described the mask in a 2021 article as an effort to distort a person’s appearance, but did not specify whether the product was publicly available.

Neither post noted whether the mask was a genuine product or just a design concept.

Van Leeuwenstein came up with the mask as part of the “Surveillance Exclusion” project, which is described on his website as:

Camera’s and other technologies create a safer living environment than ever before. Mega databanks and high resolution cameras stock hundreds of exabytes a year. But who has access to this data?

Not only the security department but also the advertisement industry is interested in this technology. They pay to use real time data to their advantage. They create advertisements that call your name, keep records of your personal interests and they follow you everywhere you go.

By wearing this mask formed like a lens it possible to become unrecognizable for facial recognition software and because of it’s transparence you will not lose your identity and facial expressions. So it’s still possible to interact with the people around you.

The creator also published a photo of the mask (or a mock-up of it) to his Instagram account in July 2017:

Van Leeuwenstein’s work was featured at the Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts (ISEA) symposium in 2020, an annual gathering self-described as fostering “interdisciplinary academic discourse and exchange among culturally diverse organisations and individuals working with art, science, the humanities and emerging technologies.”

He was described as “a speculative designer questioning today’s society.”

“His work balances between design and science. Jip’s projects are designed to make the spectator wonder; how did we arrive at this point?” read the ISEA website.

In the video below, which was also shared on the ISEA website, Van Leeuwenstein says that his work is a “balance of design and science.”

Snopes reached out to van Leeuwenstein to ask if the mask actually exists or is simply a design concept. We’ll update this article if we receive more information.

The mask joins a growing list of wearable items designed – but not necessarily produced – to block facial recognition technology. For example, Polish designer Ewa Nowak developed “face jewellery” [sic] in 2019 to make its wearer “unrecognisable” to cameras.

Isao Echizen, a professor at the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo, designed a “privacy visor” outfitted with near-infrared LED lights to block a wearer’s face.

“While the form of anti-facial recognition masks varies greatly, the function is always the same: to change one’s appearance so much that the facial recognition software is unable to get an accurate image of the face, thereby preventing identification,” wrote the Civil Liberties Union for Europe.

Researchers at the University of Chicago Physical Sciences Division described a framework to evaluate these technologies in a study presented at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Symposium on Security and Privacy in May 2023. They noted that while wearable devices may offer short-term protection against AI-recognition, they don’t provide long-term guarantees.

“A person’s face generally doesn’t change much over time and a facial recognition system that can overcome some anti-facial recognition disruption will eventually render that tool ineffective,” read a news release at the time.

Sources