Privacy: How a sweater pattern protects against facial recognition

opinion Fashion as self-protection

Why free people dress like animals

Status: 5:18 p.m | Reading time: 2 minutes

Anonymously in public places? thought

What: Getty Images/fStop/Malte Mueller

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Face recognition gives us convenient access to our smartphones – and a lot more. However, it can also unintentionally recognize us in public places – and pass on information without protection. A fashion startup from Italy has now found a solution.

BWith the keyword “functional clothing” a German tourist immediately comes to mind. One indulges in beige and brown tones and listens to the ratcheting of Velcro. But the new type of functional clothing comes from fashion country Italy of all places. The wardrobe of the start-up “Cap_able” does not only protect against wind and weather, but against digital attacks – and in the brightest colors. According to the manufacturer, the patterns of the sweaters, T-shirts, dresses and trousers in the “Manifesto” collection are intended to confuse biometric facial recognition systems. So that cameras no longer recognize people, but zebras, giraffes and dogs.

Rachele Didero, the 29-year-old CEO of Cap_able, came up with the idea while studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. In a conversation about data protection and human rights. Implementation was difficult. To protect yourself from new technology, you have to use it. The patterns of the collection consist of so-called “adversarial patches”, i.e. “opposing patches”. These were designed using artificial intelligence to confuse facial recognition software. Now facial recognition is based on algorithms that vary depending on the provider. Didero and her team based their work on the “YOLO” algorithm (You Only Look Once), which is often used for biometric capture. According to tests, according to Didero, her collection can successfully fool YOLO systems in 60 to 90 percent of the cases.

The technology could protect protesters from persecution in Hong Kong or Iran, for example. But it’s not exactly cheap: the fabrics, made in Italy from Egyptian cotton, cost between 300 and 500 euros each. And what does that even look like? Whoever thinks of leopard print thinks wrong. The patterns are more like a colorful collection of patches – as if you were on a psychedelic trip seeing a steppe landscape with zebras. It would be a hit in Berlin. Even if the protective clothing against surveillance is not quite suitable for everyday use, it points to a problem: When it comes to data protection, we are far too often naked.