STOP CALLING IT PARANOIA! FFS, This stuff is being used to track people that go to protests.

404 needs to shove their paranoia and normalize using truth and real words and not hedging like CNN or something.

Here's an actual link to the tech: Zenni ID Guard

"All-in-one defense across the light spectrum —reflects near-infrared light, filters blue light, blocks 100% UV rays, and is light-adaptive for all-day comfort."

Apart from defending against facial recognition, this is really dope.

Please dont link to paywalled articles, unless you paste the whole article contents in the post

So, how are these different that wearing a pair of very dark, wrap around sunglasses?

There's another site that sells actual privacy sunglasses (full IR blocking + reflective frames) but they've been sold out for months.

I’ve been thinking for a little while that it might be interesting to build on a pair of glasses with a couple IR LEDs at either edge and a battery pack to light them up. I can’t decide if that would be good to wear to a protest because the glare would likely obscure your entire face to cameras, or if it would be a bad idea because you’d stick out immediately on any surveillance.

Version alpha

I like the idea, but don't just buy these assuming you're good to go, and then walk around with a normie iPhone or Android device that phones home constantly with your precise location and device ID, SIM information etc.

There is always at least some error rate and deniability in probabilistic matching by something like facial recognition. There is a lot less deniability of your specific device ID, tied to your real identity (thanks to KYC laws), being in X location at Y time.

So, these actually work great when IR is used (for example you won't be able to unlock your iPhone when wearing them), however my question is, does this help at all when just a normal photo is taken? You can wear these, have a 'normal' photo taken and it just looks like you're wearing standard glasses. That could then be fed through CV, etc?

I actually recently bought a pair of Zennis and saw this advertising before it made the rounds in the media. The advertising was extremely generic in describing how it worked.

So this is it? Just IR blocking? Like, your eyes are not your whole face. Put a pair of sunglasses on and achieve the same thing...

Oh, I tend to grab Zenni glasses every couple of years and saw that option. I opted against since I didn't think they were much more than a gimmick, but also at time (and probably still is) they were not compatible with the kind that auto tint in the sun.

I'm also pretty sure if I do get tracked, they have my phone and my unique appearance. I'm not sure someone of my height and build is going to be able to Luigi someone.