Become a Juggalo In Order To Dodge Facial Recognition Technology

Facial recognition is already in broad use by law enforcement. This past week, the FBI used facial recognition to identify the man who opened fire on the offices of Maryland newspaper Capital Gazette, killing five people. But use of facial recognition is largely unregulated. Amazon’s “Rekognition” tool has been piloted in the Orlando, FL and Washington County, OR police departments, and the company is looking to expand its use. Private companies like Moscow-based NtechLab have developed “ethnicity recognition” tools with the intention for it to be used by law enforcement to, in essence, automate racial profiling. This isn’t just happening in the U.S.: in China, facial recognition is used to monitor citizen activity as a part of its extensive “social credit” system, which affects people’s ability to get loans and use certain public services, like bike rentals.

Apparently the best way to dodge facial recognition technology is to become a Juggalo. According to Twitter user @tahkion, a computer science blogger for WonderHowTo, Juggalo makeup outmatches the machine learning algorithms that govern facial recognition technology.

@tahkion explained that facial recognition works by pinpointing the areas of contrast on a human face—for instance, where a nose is located, or where the chin becomes the neck. As it happens, juggalo makeup often involves applying black paint below the mouth, but above the chin. That makes facial recognition vulnerable to misidentifying the placement of the jaw.

Facial recognition technology needs to pinpoint the eyes, nose, and jawline to work successfully. But Juggalo makeup involves redrawing the eyebrows and jawline, which confuses the tech and evades recognition in the process.  (Allure, July 3, 2018)

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ICP and the Juggalos are probably not reading my blog (although it would be cool if they were), but what is interesting in the above article is the style of face paint that seems capable of defeating current facial recognition technology.

Except for ICP concerts and Juggalos events, people are unlikely to wear Juggalos face paint as they go about their daily activities. Doing so might defeat facial recognition, but would certainly draw attention and make that person stand out from those around him or her. Still, understanding the weaknesses in facial recognition surveillance technology may help those living in hostile and non-permissive environments to find other was of defeating this intrusive technology.