Britain's most tattooed man says UK's age check told him to "remove his face"

[tobr]

I wonder how it might affect people with medical conditions that make their faces look unusual. If the law only applies to pornography, most people in that situation might not want to go talk to a journalist about it.

[eesmith]

Not well. "When Face Recognition Doesn’t Know Your Face Is a Face An estimated 100 million people live with facial differences. As face recognition tech becomes widespread, some say they’re getting blocked from accessing essential systems and services." https://www.wired.com/story/when-face-recognition-doesnt-kno...

Posted to HN yesterday at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45667472 . No comments.

[cykros]

Especially when firing up a VPN and not providing anyone their ID is so trivial.

[delaminator]

Then they supply govt. ID.

The law does not mandate check via camera.

[jamesbelchamber]

This was never necessary - Yoti (which I think is being used in this case) has a tool that allows you to validate your identity to them, and then use that to validate only that you're over 18 to third parties. Yivi (a Dutch non-profit) even has an open source version, and it works really well.

I have no clue why these "facial age estimation" technologies are being pushed in place of that. They're much worse in terms of privacy and accuracy, and they're easier to trick if you want to bypass them.

[Flere-Imsaho]

Gary's Mod (a videogame that uses the Half Life 2 engine) is being used to bypass these live face checkers [0]. It's primitive, but I can see in the future full-on AI driven face generation doing this job. It'll basically become a arms race between the checking technology and the fake face generation.

[0] https://www.flexposer.com/

[jimbohn]

It's truly saddening that we have to solve this problem technically, whereas it should have been solved politically (or better, this absurd thing should never have been considered). The fact that it can be slightly contained by more technically capable people is worse, because instead of shocking everyone all at once it allows you to boil the frog as a politician.

[isodev]

While I can imagine this is very frustrating, I think we can definitely see "facial accessories" becoming more mainstream as ways to evade "unsolicited surveillance". Like... imagine someone invents glasses with an outward looking camera that can stream all their surroundings without proper opt-in consent (where this is required).

[spoiler]

I can't tell if it's a sarcastic joke, but just in case it isn't and you want a bit of free anxiety with your coffee: the future is now, old man!

[amelius]

Add this to:

Falsehoods lawmakers believe about faces.

[vaylian]

Also: Falsehoods lawmakers believe about bodies.

Conservative politicians tend to be transphobic, because they can't understand that biology makes exceptions.

[Cthulhu_]

Facial recognition, biometrics and ID verification are all flawed systems, based on a government or country that is running behind in digitization. In other countries, government operated digital identity management systems are integrated already [0], and banks provide age verification systems that protect your identity and don't involve uploading your ID or mugshot to one of many 3rd parties [1]. It's basically like an online payment, but instead of "I confirm this has been paid" it's a "I confirm this user is 18+" signal.

I don't understand why these new age check systems are years behind on technological reality.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DigiD

[1] https://www.idin.nl/en/

[NaomiLehman]

I think the pretty reliable method of biometrics are fingerprints, right? Not great online, but can't really be altered in real life.

I'm not proposing to use them online, just thinking that they work really well with borders/passports. Very difficult to beat these checks.

[CuriouslyC]

We're entering a world where hacking facial recognition is going to be a big thing. People are going to start wearing masks in public because of ICE, and to avoid repercussions for going to protests, and that's going to normalize a slippery slope. We're going to end up all Anonymous.

[LeoPanthera]

Countries with internet age verification don't have ICE.

At least for now.

[jalapenos]

Good time to put money into neck gaiters

[Cthulhu_]

That's not new though.

[chao-]

There's a deep irony in that his tattoos make him more uniquely identifiable than the average person.

[n1b0m]

Maybe he could use a Kier Starmer mask.

[etiennebausson]

Remove his face mask, not remove his face.

I swear, the quality of some journalism is so shameless.

[tobr]

That part of the title is in quotes. It’s paraphrasing how the guy expressed it to point out the absurdness of being asked to remove a face mask when you’re not wearing a face mask.

[beejiu]

The face mask was his face.

[jibal]

The journalism here is fine.

[delaminator]

The UK's Online Safety Act requires website owners to verify ages but it doesn't prescribe specific methods for doing so.

It is the vendor supplying the website he is visiting that told him to do that.

[Hizonner]

> The UK's Online Safety Act requires website owners to verify ages but it doesn't prescribe specific methods for doing so.

... and just ignores the fact that there are no sane or remotely appropriate ways to implement that. As well as the fact that it's a silly goal to begin with.

> It is the vendor supplying the website he is visiting that told him to do that.

... after making a guess as to what would be the least bad way of implementing this foolish mandate.

[sjw987]

The chap basically has a permanent version of those clothing items that confuse security cameras.

Perhaps we'll see more people sporting this look in the future.

[sunrunner]

CV Dazzle? If so, what are the real implications for the legality of CV Dazzle or equivalents? The 'most tattooed man' example obviously can seem like not much of a real problem for everyday people that haven't gone to that extreme, but I worry that any outcome from this will transform into other areas such as deliberate camouflage for, say, activists and protestors.

[monegator]

A few years ago, i think 2018, i was in munich and as usual i went to see the mueum of technology. They had this exibition about the future of surveillance as seen by cyberpunk artists and there was this part about hair style and makeup that would confuse face detection algorythms. It was brillant, but i never managed to find it again. I hope the hivemind here remembers or can point me in the right direction

[jamesbelchamber]

https://xkcd.com/1105/

[metalman]

thisakes the news because the man has a bit of celebrity to draw on, but there will be many people going through countless versions of bieng rejected, and then bieng flat out refused ANY help trying to comply with the utterly flawed premise built on half assed technology, that has been rushed through legislation in order to make dedperate political powers feel like they are in controll. as the british say in a droll fashion, fuck off.

[fl_rn_st]

God forbid someone lives a different life than you, has to have some mental problems right?

[jimnotgym]

But the law doesn't force them to have a fallback.

Anyone that the AI doesn't like is therefore excluded from those services.

[DoingIsLearning]

> If that's all they offer, it's on the companies to implement a fallback for edge cases like these.

These news articles and the adjacent online discussion are textbook warfare psyops 'nudging'.

Doesn't matter if you are real/bot, being payed or not. The discourse is now changing the goalposts to focus on the details of OSA implementation, not OSA itself. Mission acomplished.

It's on governments to stop pushing legislation that slow boil us into autocracy. It's on us to not be ok with that.

Everything else is noise.

[A1kmm]

I've personally been unable to pass AI 'liveness' detection (which was a high-stress situation when it related to something my new employer asked me to do after I already resigned from my previous role) despite repeated attempts and all I have is alopecia areata affecting my eyelashes / eyebrows (a relatively common condition).

These models are discriminatory for a lot of people, I'd say, and shouldn't be allowed.

[elric]

> "doesn't work on a man that looks more like an injured smurf than a human"

What the actual fuck is up with this statement? Human faces are complex, there are so many different cultures and all kinds of complex body modifications (including facial tattoos) have a rich history going back thousands of years. Some shitty cobbled together AI not being able to recognize that is the real problem. Not the facial tattoos. And the injured smurf comment was completely uncalled for.