Printed Masks Can Bypass Facial Recognition Technology Used At Airports

Harin - Dec 17, 2019

Researchers at Kneron, an AI firm, used printed masks to fool facial recognition systems at airports, border crossing checkpoints, and banks.

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Facial recognition is being used more and more as a security measure, from smartphones to corporations and law enforcement to keep track of who is accessing which devices or locations.

But this security tool is not really as foolproof as you may have thought.

Researchers at Kneron, an AI firm, used printed masks with faces of other people to fool facial recognition systems at airports, border crossing checkpoints, and banks.

Because facial recognition systems help decrease waiting times, they have been receiving a warm reception in many airports.

With facial recognition systems quickly scanning people’s faces and comparing the results with their passport photos, things at border crossing checkpoints become more efficient and convenient.

They are needed for security reasons, but they can still be bypassed.

Kneron decided to test these technologies by letting researchers put on printed masks with different faces and go through the systems.

The result is that these masks could actually fool the systems.

And it didn’t take much effort to print these masks. However, one thing to keep in mind is that these masks weren’t the cheap plastic ones that you could find in costume stores.

Researchers testes the systems at three different continents. They even fooled payment tablets from AliPay and WeChat. They successfully fooled a recognition system installed at a border crossing when they were in Chian and passed through the Schipol Airport systems of Amsterdam.

Seeing that such technology can be fooled using printed masks is a bit unsettling.

However, it would not be that easy to fool more sophisticated and advanced facial recognition technology like light imaging. The researchers didn’t succeed in fooling the technology used by Apple and Huawei.

The researchers received permission from security guards and the tests were carried out under their supervision.