Privacy Visor Confuses Face Recognition Camera

"Hiding behind your glasses" just took on a whole new meaning. At Tokyo's National Institute of Informatics, Isao Echizen, an associate professor in the Digital Content and Media Sciences Research Division, unveiled a privacy visor -- a set of glasses that prevents cameras with face-recognition software from recognizing you. Echizen designed the glasses with near-infrared LEDs placed around the eyes and the bridge of the nose, two areas that computers use to pick out faces. Near-infrared is invisible to people, but many cameras can pick it up. The lights add digital "noise" to the image and when the computer tries to match the image with ones in a database, it gets confused and is unable to complete a match.