‘Invisible’ camouflage shirt can hide you from facial-recognition AI – and tricks it into thinking you’re not human

A SHIRT that claims to block wearers from facial-recognition AI has now gone on sale. The designer created the garment in response to the use of AI-assisted video surveillance across the world. The top acts as a “shield” against live facial recognition technology Credit: Simon Weckert – "Digital Camouflage" Wearers become invisible to AI systems by “tricking” them Credit: Simon Weckert – "Digital Camouflage" The “Digital Camouflage” shirt, designed by Simon Weckert, claims wearers become “invisible” to AI-powered object-detection systems. This is due to the top’s unique combination of colours and abstract patterns, which “tricks” AI systems into no longer recognising those wearing the garment as human. Sign up for the Tech newsletter Thank you! As Weckert explained to Dezeen, “AI systems are made of multiple layers and never learned what a human is – they learned what humans statistically look like in millions of training images.” “The pattern essentially shouts over the quiet statistical whisper that says ‘person’. “To a human it reads as an almost hypnotic textile; to the AI model it reads as nothing at all.” However, Weckert clarifies: “Digital Camouflage is not a tool for evading the police, and it is not a promise of anonymity.” The shirt, now available for £55.65 on the artist’s website, was created in response to the growing use of facial recognition cameras by agencies across the world. In the UK, police forces use AI-powered live facial recognition cameras to scan the faces of those in public spaces and match them against watchlists of wanted suspects in “real time”. Most read in Tech However, the roll-out of the technology has been controversial for a number of reasons, with critics claiming the system feeds into “racial bias” and has flagged innocent people. More recently, one of Sainsbury’s London branches had to halt the use of the live facial recognition technology after a customer was wrongly challenged as a shoplifter. Weckert added that the design brings attention to the role automated monitoring plays in everyday life. Comment now