Privacy

32165 readers

980 users here now

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.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

800

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

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

135 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (3 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] 41 points 9 months ago (3 children)

While I have no idea how much a computerized vending machine costs, I found this article about a age/gender classifier that runs on a Raspberry Pi 4.

Looking at the machine's big touchscreen, I think this classifier would fit on the SBC or require a relatively small upgrade.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

Yikes, smh... Yep that'll do it. I hate this timeline.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

Same Raspberry Pi foundation that hired a cop with a background in surveillance tech as their "resident maker"?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

The error message says ".exe" and looks like a dot net namespace.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Doritos are probably plenty powerful enough

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

There's a vending machine in a co-working space I use sometimes that has a full on fridge and oven, and when you order off the touchscreen...something happens inside and sometimes a hot cooked thing comes out. I have no idea how it works and have not used it myself, because it seems possibly kinda gross.