Computer vision dazzle also known as CV dazzle, dazzle makeup, or anti-surveillance makeup, is a type of
camouflage
Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the ...
used to hamper
facial recognition software
A facial recognition system is a technology capable of matching a human face from a digital image or a video frame against a database of faces. Such a system is typically employed to authenticate users through ID verification services, and wo ...
, inspired by
dazzle camouflage
Dazzle camouflage, also known as razzle dazzle (in the U.S.) or dazzle painting, is a family of ship camouflage that was used extensively in World War I, and to a lesser extent in World War II and afterwards. Credited to the British marine ar ...
used by vehicles such as ships and planes.
Methods
CV dazzle combines stylized makeup, asymmetric hair, and sometimes infrared lights built in to glasses or clothing to break up detectable facial patterns recognized by computer vision algorithms in much the same way that warships contrasted color and used sloping lines and curves to distort the structure of a vessel.
It has been shown to be somewhat successful at defeating
face detection
Face detection is a computer technology being used in a variety of applications that identifies human faces in digital images. Face detection also refers to the psychological process by which humans locate and attend to faces in a visual scene. ...
software in common use, including that employed by
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
. CV dazzle attempts to block detection by facial recognition technologies such as
DeepFace DeepFace is a deep learning facial recognition system created by a research group at Facebook. It identifies human faces in digital images. The program employs a nine-layer neural network with over 120 million connection weights and was trained on f ...
"by creating an 'anti-face'". It uses occlusion, covering certain facial features; transformation, altering the shape or colour of parts of the face; and a combination of the two. Prominent artists employing this technique include Adam Harvey and
Jillian Mayer
Jillian Mayer (born June 24, 1984) is a visual performance artist and filmmaker. She was born in Miami and is based there today. Mayer's video works and performances have been displayed at galleries and museums internationally and film festivals ...
.
Use in protests
Computer vision dazzle makeup has been used by protesters in several different protest movements. Its use as a protesting aid has often been found ineffective as it may be effective to thwart computer technology but draws human attention, is easy for human monitors to spot on security cameras, and makes it hard for protesters to blend in within a crowd. Advances in facial recognition technology make dazzle makeup increasingly ineffective.
See also
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Adversarial machine learning
Adversarial machine learning is the study of the attacks on machine learning algorithms, and of the defenses against such attacks. A recent survey exposes the fact that practitioners report a dire need for better protecting machine learning syste ...
References
{{Camouflage
Camouflage
Computer vision