Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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'Facial recognition' error message on vending machine sparks concern at University of Waterloo (kitchener.ctvnews.ca)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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A set of smart vending machines at the University of Waterloo is expected to be removed from campus after students raised privacy concerns about their software.

The machines have M&M artwork on them and sell chocolate and other candy. They are located throughout campus, including in the Modern Languages building and Hagey Hall.

Earlier this month, a student noticed an error message on one of the machines in the Modern Languages building. It appeared to indicate there was a problem with a facial recognition application.

"We wouldn't have known if it weren't for the application error. There's no warning here," said River Stanley, a fourth-year student, who investigated the machines for an article in the university publication, mathNEWS.

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[–] [email protected] 122 points 8 months ago (52 children)

Why in the ever living hell would a vending machine need local-only facial recognition...

[–] [email protected] 95 points 8 months ago (9 children)

My guess is to associate which product is best selling to which demographic to better target them.

So ingenious 🤮

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (8 children)

I feel like it'd be tough to find a chip powerful enough to capture demographic attributes while also cheap enough to ship in vending machines? But admittedly I've little context on embedded systems and their capabilities

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

Doritos are probably plenty powerful enough

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