Printed Masks Fool Airport Facial Recognition Technology, Researchers Discovered

All it takes to fool facial recognition at airports and border crossings is a printed mask, researchers found https://t.co/42ymWrzYZI #fintech #biometrics pic.twitter.com/n294lfUUmw

— Chris Gledhill (@cgledhill) December 13, 2019

Quickly identifying people by scanning their faces and comparing them to their passport photos has made border crossing checkpoints convenient and efficient.

This is integral for security reasons, however, it looks like these systems aren't quite as unfailing as we give them credit for.

Kneron decided to put these technologies to the test and had researchers don printed masks showcasing different faces and then go through facial recognition systems.

It turns out these masks were able to fool the systems.

These weren't even intricately printed masks. However, it has to be noted that they weren't low-cost plastic ones found in costume stores of President Trump or the Queen of England.

Fooling the systems with printed masks

Testing systems across three different continents, Kneron's researchers wore masks depicting another person's face before proceeding to try and dupe the facial recognition tools.

They fooled payment tablets run by Chinese companies, AliPay and WeChat. They also duped a facial recognition system at a border crossing in China, as well as passing through Amsterdam's Schipol Airport systems in the Netherlands. 

It's a bit disconcerting that printed masks can fool such technology.

However, more sophisticated facial recognition technology such as light imaging wasn't able to be fooled so easily. The technology used by Huawei and Apple ID was not fooled when the researchers attempted to trick them.

Security guards had offered permission for the researchers to carry out the tests, which were supervised. There are usually people who are near the facial recognition machines, so one would hope they'd notice someone wearing a mask if the occasion were to arise.