Vending machine error reveals secret face image database of college students
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
OPTICAL SENSOR
- Count the number of people walking by your machine
- Track age and gender of your customers
- Learn who watches your videos, by location and what time of day
“The facial recognition camera and video display signage on the front of the vending machine can collect data about the customer’s age and gender. Once the data has been sent to the control unit, the data can be combined with other information, such as local weather conditions and time of day. The platform can then send a message back to the video display to trigger targeted promotions to stimulate add-on sales in a single transaction.”
It's confusing because in the beginning of the article it brings up another case where there was a database that was deleted.
In this new case the company is claiming it's only using facial recognition to "activate the purchase interface". There is no data stored.
Seems a way over engineered way to activate the display and is pretty much in place for future use. But in this case there's been no secret database revealed.
This is a very generous reading. A more parsimonious one is that they are actively doing facial recognition to get age and gender, and are arguing this is legal because they don't store the faces after acting on them, as the quoted marketing material suggests.
(I would expect laws banning unconsented facial recognition to ban it regardless of whether the faces end up in a database afterwards.)