These Clothing Patterns Can Help You Hide From Surveillance Cameras
Facial detection technologies have gone from commonplace to near-ubiquitous in major cities, prompting some privacy researchers to look for ways to thwart them. Hacker and former CISO Bill Swearingen’s noRecognition project can now generate patterns that hide a wearer from cameras, making them useful for t-shirts, face coverings, hats, and other garments to help maintain your privacy.
People have been using makeup and specific clothing patterns to trick smart cameras for years, but with improvements in AI and image recognition, this has grown increasingly difficult. The noRecognition project wants to both enhance these apparel countermeasures and make them more readily available, hence the crowdfunding campaign.
“Privacy is a fundamental right,” Swearingen told TechCrunch, saying he wanted people to be able to opt out of being tracked with something as simple as a choice of clothing.
My grandparent’s sofa probably would have been invisible to modern facial recognition systems.
Credit: noRecognition
These patterns will be sold in two different tiers: Standard and One of One. The former will include the mainstream patterns the project generates, giving you broad-spectrum coverage against detection by security and surveillance systems. However, it’s possible that AI developers will one day buy these prints and train their models to track them, making them less useful as protective measures.
One of One, however, will only be sold in extremely limited numbers: 50 of each pattern across the various clothing options. Once those 50 are sold, that pattern will never be sold again, in theory, making it almost impossible for an AI model developer to use it for training, as its supply and use would be too limited.
Swearingen is also releasing his team’s numbers to keep the campaign honest. You can see which vision systems the patterns were tested against, how well they work when worn by different people with different builds and facial structures, and dig into the research they’ve conducted over the past year.
One downside to these clothes is that along with being invisible to surveillance cameras, you’re likely invisible to the cameras in automated vehicles and robotaxis, too, so if you end up wearing some, take particular care when crossing the street.
They can also be expensive. Although individual off-the-noRecognition-rack T-shirts are $45, a “full kit,” with three custom-printed, one-of-one patterns, is $479.
