Some of the best discoveries ever made were accidents. Zenni, an online glasses store, sells lenses with a pink coating that blocks infrared (IR) light. This has the happy side-effect of blinding many forms of facial recognition technology. Based on tests by Tech news site 404 Media, Zenni's ID Guard glasses work pretty well.
According to Stephen Lee, the Director of Digital Innovation at Zenni, the IR-blocking coating was designed to make wearing eyeglasses outside more comfortable. Most facial recognition technology also uses IR. Visible light is susceptible to getting blocked, even by normal sunglasses, but infrared is not. 404 Media tested Zenni's ID Guard glasses on one of the best-known forms of facial recognition out there - Apple's FaceID.
FaceID shines an IR light to capture the contours of your face, in order to recognize you and unlock your phone. If you aim an IR camera as the FaceID camera, you can see bursts of infrared light when it activates. Zenni's ID Guard glasses block around 80% of IR light, obscuring everything behind the lenses, including your eyes, which appear black.
Read more: How to Protect Your Privacy on Public WiFi Networks
That's enough to throw off many kinds of facial recognition systems. Consumer cameras with night vision also utilize infrared light to illuminate the area without startling wildlife or annoying the neighbors at all hours of the night. Zenni's glasses will throw off those cameras as well.
Of course, it's important to point out that this will not defeat every kind of facial recognition tech. Some systems simply take a visible-light photo of you and compare it to a database of faces on file. Zenni's eyeglasses don't block visible light, so they won't stop that method from working; but in that case, often normal sunglasses will.
Read more: Smart Glasses Can Use Facial Recognition to Dox Complete Strangers
The pink sheen won't adversely affect your vision, according to Zenni, so you can wear these glasses at all times, day or night, and you can generally keep your identity private at the same time. That's a great win. But Matthew Gault at 404 Media describes a loss. The fact that a major glasses retailer is using protection against surveillance as a selling point doesn't speak well of how we feel our society is going.
[Image credit: Zenni]
