Digital privacy seems quite straightforward, because your digital devices are environments you more or less can have complete control over if you want to. But when you’re out and about, it’s a much more uncontrolled environment. There are cameras everywhere.
I wear face masks everywhere for a combo of protecting myself from illness and privacy. But the limitation is social acceptability. If anything good came out of covid it’s the normalisation of face masks, but you are far from unidentifiable if your only face covering is a covid mask. We’re lucky that sunglasses and hoodies on their own are fairly normal, but all of the above in combination would draw attention to you. And it’s definitely not socially acceptable to walk around in a balaclava.
The other thing is forensic data. If you don’t wear gloves, you’ll leave fingerprints everywhere, and hair too. I suppose wearing gloves is not particularly seen as weird or suspicious, but it just seems like there are a lot of considerations and challenges with preventing the state from knowing your every move when you leave the house.
What considerations do you make for IRL privacy, if any?
(Not particularly interested in “I don’t care about IRL privacy so I don’t do anything”—that’s fine and your choice, but ofc this question is aimed towards those who do care)
Stay in the basement and drink alone.
They should make a sunscreen or moisturiser that shields you from face recognition and fingerprints, like those covers on license plates that make em shine on police cameras
a sunscreen or moisturiser that shields you from face recognition
Barely related, but I did see this recently and had laugh
[Loud spinning tire sounds]
[dramatic music]
[person speaking english]
[different person speaking english through a phone speaker]
[beat drops]
Why can’t you drive off?
It was at a gas station pump. It’s about pumping gas and leaving without paying.
cash
not much I can do about CCTV (without breaching important social norms)
(without breaching important social norms)
But why would anyone who cares about privacy consider them more important?
Because that can make you stand out even more.
As an example: No point using high contrast makeup to break up the patterns of your face from facial recognition if all they have to do is look for the guy with wacky makeup on in their footage.
Have fun not getting stopped by the police if you walk around with a balaclava, especially if you’re Black.
Their problem. We’re activists. We fight for rights, not compromise them.
What do you mean? Getting stopped by the police is a big deal. They can arrest you—in which case they will obtain your details, take your fingerprints, etc, which is antithetical to privacy—and they can do worse than arrest you too if they feel like it.
Well it highly depends on the country in question
In what country does being detained by the police not lead to them identifying you? The police are highly unlikely to release someone if they don’t know who they are. I think it’s fairly global that detainees who refuse to give their name to the police will at least be kept until the police have identified them.
The government already has your data because it’s how it works. Detention for identification is not bad and you can just bring your ID with you (that you should do all the time tbh) in case the police ask questions. Still they won’t like follow you so there is some improvement as long as you don’t let the cameras track you exactly to your home address.
In US pig will kill you and nothing will be done about it.
Most people are not willing to take that shot esp if you are in a lower social economic position.
Not surprised at all tbh and of course it’s usually not worth taking such risk. I was talking about countries where covering your face is allowed.
because human being
That’s weird.
Because breaching important social norms does the opposite of privacy, it draws attention to you.
I vote for political parties that are explicitly against facial recognition when possible (always a small party that nobody knows). I use cash.
Nothing. The effort required to make a meaningful impact against this type of threat is way beyond my threat level.
So uh what kind of threat level are we talking about here
Tin foil balaclava.
I wear a giant Juggernaut-style helmet
That’ll help with keeping a low profile. I personally go for a red flashing clown nose, and triggers in my shoes which set off a loud explosion sound with every step. The speaker is in my ridiculously tall top hat.
Nice! You’ll basically be invisible
Tbh I’d be trying to avoid eye contact so this may kinda work by making them seem unstable and insane. I’d remember them as crazy guys but wouldn’t be able to identify them without their outfit.
In the public, I wear sunglasses and a hat. I don’t park in area’s that have lots of cameras. Also don’t try and stand out, don’t wear to flashy clothing, but try and match a little.
For at your home, if you have a garage, park your car in the garage, that way when you leave, neighbors don’t know your gone, or when your home. Also make sure to install some sort of lock on your garage door, but make sure it’s not electric, found that out the hard way. If you live in an apartment complex, park your car out back if you don’t need to carry anything in.
IRL privacy in winter is super easy, wear some layers, hat, sunglasses and gloves.
Some notes for you, standards change were you are, so reflect on the advice your given. For example, I live in the States, but some might live in Europe, cars are different, dress standards are different, stores are different, etc. So some pieces of advice that might be rock solid in one place, may not be wise in others.
Yeah my hoodie, mask, and sunglasses combo doesn’t make me stand out, especially when I walk into the bank /s
Not a whole lot, honestly. Wear a mask and sunglasses sometimes.
If you were determined/sensitive you could attach IR lights/battery to a hat that will blow out the image on a CCTV camera without drawing too much attention from those around you.
Gait detection is also a thing that hiding your face won’t stop. You’d have to just constantly put a rock in different places in your shoes or break a leg LOL
They also make devices that will blow out microphones in close proximity.
Gait detection is also a thing that hiding your face won’t stop. You’d have to just constantly put a rock in different places in your shoes or break a leg LOL
Never even considered this but that makes sense damn. Time to start work on my open source privacy-respecting leg breaking machine
these folks can help and its less invasive https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNeeovY4qNU
This laughably does not work unless you’re only walking at night under very specific circumstances.
What doesn’t?
Nothing. Simple.
I hear a lot about gait detection, but I wonder how widely it is implemented.
Everything you’re describing is terribly inaccurate.
LOL good thing you showed up to tell us absolutely nothing
Ride a motorcycle. Then if you’re wearing a helmet and gloves it’s not odd
Motorcycles have license plates. Better to ride a bmx bicycle with a motorcycle helmet.
Won’t attract any attention at all /s
In don’t really bother much in public places, I use umbrellas when it rains and sunglasses when it is sunny, but In general I try to avoid connecting to public WiFi and always use my vpn when I do.
I dont have any identifying data on my mailbox. I make sure to destroy PII on mail.
My routine is normal, gray, boring.
I love my Kolari shades I picked up when they were running their kickstarter. Fantastic to use indoors and out. https://kolarivision.com/product/kolari-shades-ultra/
Oh and if you have need enough to worry about fingerprints, best to just get rid of them outright and deal with the rather short but uncomfortable recovery for your fingers to heal back over.
Right, I just have to work at the pineapple plantation for 8 more years, then I’ll be set
lol you don’t necessarily need these but any IR reflective materials around or on your face is best. Most of the high resolution facial scanners on the market use some form of UR depth mapping and it screws out all up
