Covert video footage of Brainwash cafe customers to create dataset sparks backlash

A dataset created by Stanford University researchers by covertly videoing customers in a San Francisco cafe sparked a backlash by privacy and civil rights groups.

Video footage was recorded over three days in October and November 2014 without the awareness or consent of Brainwash cafe customers, sparking privacy concerns. The opacity of the recording had not been addressed in Stanford's research paper on the project, according to the New York Times.

Concerns were also expressed about the potential misuse of the dataset. According to Human Rights Watch, it appeared in a 2018 research paper affiliated with Megvii (Face++). Megvii has provided surveillance technology to monitor Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.

The dataset was removed from Stanford University's website 'at the request of the depositor' in June 2019 following the publication of researcher Adam Harvey's Exposing.ai project and a Financial Times investigation into facial recognition data sharing. 

Clips from the dataset remain available on YouTube.

News, commentary, analysis 🗞️

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• https://stanforddaily.com/2020/07/28/as-facial-recognition-draws-scrutiny-nationwide-stanford-research-raises-questions-closer-to-home/

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