by Paul Joseph Watson
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High-definition
face-scanning cameras have been installed at a bus stop in Oxford
Street, London as part of a new invasive advertising campaign that uses
Minority Report-style technology to deliver gender-specific targeted ad
content.
“With a 90 percent accuracy rating, the computer
built into the placement analyzes and guesses gender based on specific
facial attributes of the jawline, cheekbones, nose and eyes. Based on
the current guess of a pedestrian’s gender, the digital placement shows
an advertisement targeted at a man or a woman. As this technology
continues to be applied to the field of advertising, the computer could
also make a judgement about a person’s age, race or body type,” reports Digital Trends.
The $60,000 dollar ad, displayed on a screen that is a
cross between an iPad and an XBox Kinect, plays a 40 second video
message when a female’s face is scanned but only a brief message if a
man walks past. “We’re not giving men and boys the choice to see the
full ad on this occasion – so they get a glimpse of what it’s like to
have basic choices taken away,” said Marie Staunton, chief executive of
Plan UK, the organization featured in the ad.
The technology itself was developed by Clear Channel
UK and 3D Exposure, who assert that while concerns about people being
subjected to Minority Report-style invasive advertising have been
voiced, what they are working on for future projects “may soon surpass what we’ve seen at the cinema.”
Privacy watchdog The Open Rights Group labeled the idea “creepy”.
The 2002 movie starring Tom Cruise depicted Cruise’s
character walking through a subway station while sensors that scan his
eyes address him by name and bombard him with personalized ads. Another
clip shows people boarding a train also having their irises scanned for
approval. The movie was based on a dystopian short story by Philip K.
Dick which warned of how such technology would be used in the future to
crush privacy and civil liberties.
Clear Channel are by no means the only major company to be working on the new wave of invasive advertising. Last year, IBM announced
that they are planning to scan “RFID technology that people are
carrying around with them” in order to tailor ads to specific consumer
tastes.
We have previously covered
the fact that private industry and eventually government are set to
implement plans to use microphones and cameras in the computers and TiVo
style boxes of hundreds of millions of Americans to monitor their
lifestyle choices and build psychological profiles, which will be used
for invasive advertising and data mining.
In 2006, Google announced that they would use
in-built microphones to listen in on user’s background noise, be it
television, music or radio – and then direct advertising at them based
on their preferences.
“The idea is to use the existing PC microphone to
listen to whatever is heard in the background, be it music, your phone
going off or the TV turned down. The PC then identifies it, using
fingerprinting, and then shows you relevant content, whether that’s
adverts or search results, or a chat room on the subject,” reported the Register.
The expiration of a key technology patent is paving
the way for a scramble amongst scores of biometrics research and
development companies, all desperate to make their own brand of iris
scanning technology commonplace, effectively creating a real life
Minority Report society, where everyone is linked into an identification
database.
As detailed by Bloomberg News
, the patent for recording the unique characteristics of the Iris as a
form of identification was granted to two eye doctors in 1987, who then
approached a Cambridge University professor to develop a way of
automating iris identification. That further patent was granted in 1994,
but it expired last year, opening the door for the new wave of invasive
advertising technology to be implemented.
Leading marketing companies believe that within the
next five years, iris recognition technology will create over $2 billion
in revenue by becoming a routine part of everyday life.
London’s innumerable bus stops have often been used
as testing ground for Big Brother-style initiatives. In 2002, Transport
For London displayed a billboard to promote their CCTV surveillance
technology which depicted Orwellian irises in the skies of London
beneath the words “Secure Beneath the Watchful Eyes”.
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Sunday 26 February 2012
Face-Scanning for Targeted Advertising Rolled Out In London Minority Report-Style technology labeled “creepy”
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