Courtesy Redpepper/Vimeo and MSNBC(MSNBC) -- It's not a secret: Just a quick stroll through your city will allow a
couple of cameras to catch your face. That ATM, that traffic light,
that grocery store entrance — video-surveillance happens everywhere. But
is that reality enough to make you happily use an app which scans your
face in exchange for discount codes?
Anna Brading of Sopho's security blog
isn't so sure that it should be. "[This arrangement] worries me," she
writes. "How securely will the data be stored? Can [a company] sell on
the data they've collected? What if the data gets stolen?"
Brading's
got her mind on Facedeals, a camera system which could one day make its
way into your favorite haunts. This system scans your face as you enter
a premises, checks you into the location on Facebook, and sends you a
text message with a discount code (which is specifically tailored to you
based on what you like on Facebook).
These things won't happen
unless you've installed and authorized the corresponding Facedeals app,
mind you. The Facedeals app learns how you look based on your tagged
Facebook photos and uses that information to identify you whenever you
enter a location with a Facedeals camera system.
Now, whether
you're excited to see Facedeals in your local stores or already planning
to avoid any location with such a system, you can relax for a while.
According to the folks of Redpepper,
the advertising agency behind the whole setup, they're still
"finalizing testing and seeking funding for Facedeals." No word as to
how the agency would deal with the wrath of Facebook, which might not be
all that happy about the Facedeals name or logo.
