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

submitted 10 months ago by Ninjazzon@infosec.pub to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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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.

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[-] CaptDust@sh.itjust.works 122 points 10 months ago

Why in the ever living hell would a vending machine need local-only facial recognition...

[-] MajorSauce@sh.itjust.works 95 points 10 months ago

My guess is to associate which product is best selling to which demographic to better target them.

So ingenious 🤮

[-] CaptDust@sh.itjust.works 12 points 10 months ago

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

[-] MajorSauce@sh.itjust.works 42 points 10 months ago

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.

[-] CaptDust@sh.itjust.works 12 points 10 months ago

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

[-] LWD@lemm.ee 8 points 10 months ago

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

[-] Flumpkin@slrpnk.net 5 points 10 months ago

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

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this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2024

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