Age Verification Cameras Fooled By Magazine Photos

Japan is working on deploying visual “age verification” cameras on cigarette vending machines. The idea is to make sure that the person using the machine is actually an adult. Unfortunately, there’s a couple of little flies in that particular ointment.

First is the obvious one that I’m sure everybody has thought of, I am not a hamster, I had this one in mind before I finished reading about it. All a determined kid’s got to do is have somebody that the camera will “pass” do the transaction for them. That’s like a major DUH.

The second problem makes the first alternative unnecessary. The system can apparently be foold by holding up a magazine photo of an adult.

Visual recognition systems and software have come a long way, but as you can tell, there’s still a few holes in it yet. It might be easier if they went the way we have here in the US. In case you haven’t bothered looking around, cigarette machines are becoming increasingly rare these days. I’m an ex smoker, still prone to spotting things like that and I haven’t see one in years.

Technorati Tags: age verification, cigarette machine, smoking, cameras, japan