MWC 2015: Thumb your nose at the surveillance state with AVG’s “invisibility glasses”

Home / News / MWC 2015: Thumb your nose at the surveillance state with AVG’s “invisibility glasses”

Anti-virus software maker AVG is in attendance at MWC this year, and it has brought with it something that’ll make privacy advocates very happy indeed: a pair of invisibility glasses.

Despite the name, they won’t actually “do a Harry Potter” and make you invisible (that technology is on the way, mind you) – instead they’re designed to fool the facial recognition programs that are increasingly forcing their way into all our lives.

The glasses’ frames sport a number of infrared LEDs. The light emitted can’t be seen by the naked eye, but most cameras will pick it up – and it’ll disrupt the features of your fizzog sufficiently that facial recognition will no longer work.

You might point out that some cameras, including many of those on smartphones, feature infrared filters capable of cutting out light – but AVG has put in one other measure in the form of retro-reflective materials. These mean that taking a photo of your face with a flash will result in the light being shone back into the camera, obscuring your features.

Don’t expect the glasses to pop up in your local Boots anytime soon, however. AVG says they’re still in the early prototype stage.

[Source: AVG Now]

Now read this › How to become invisible (to Google)

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Tech journalism's answer to The Littlest Hobo, I've written for a host of titles and lived in three different countries in my 15 years-plus as a freelancer. But I've always come back home to Stuff eventually, where I specialise in writing about cameras, streaming services and being tragically addicted to Destiny.