Airport Facial Recognition Systems Fooled By Masks

In recent years with the rise in facial recognition systems, we’ve started to hear about how some governments are planning on introducing the technology to airports. This will be used for security purposes where suspects or wanted criminals can be spotted using these systems. It sounds good in theory, but maybe not so effective in real life.

According to a report from Fortune, it talks about how some airport facial recognition systems can be fooled by the person wearing nothing more than a mask. This was tested by AI company Kneron, where they visited various terminals and tricked these facial recognition systems into allowing them access to certain locations or even facilitating payments.

Kneron’s CEO Albert Liu told Fortune, “This shows the threat to the privacy of users with sub-par facial recognition that is masquerading as ‘AI’. The technology is available to fix these issues but firms have not upgraded it. They are taking shortcuts at the expense of security.” What’s interesting is that these are systems that should not be so easily beat.

For example, Apple’s iPhones already feature facial recognition technology that cannot be beaten with masks, so in theory, if this is already achievable on our phones, why not with other applications as well?

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: Privacy, Security