The rapid rise of facial recognition technology has prompted widespread privacy concerns. But now Japanese researchers have developed a tool aimed at countering the surveillance tactic — the world’s first privacy visor.

In recent years facial recognition has been integrated into security cameras and databases and Facebook, even used to covertly monitor consumers and track shopping habits.

Isao Echizen, an associate professor at Tokyo’s National Institute of Informatics, and Seiichi Gohshi, a professor at Kogakuin University, were wary of these developments—and decided to take action. After months of research, the duo invented a pair of high-tech glasses that emit a near infrared light to block face recognition cameras. It was their goal to counter what they call the invasion of privacy caused by photographs taken in secret.

The glasses, currently in prototype form, are hardly what you would term stylish. They are essentially a pair of clunky-looking lab goggles. Attached to them are small circular lights that, when turned on, are visible only to cameras. They are connected to a wire and a battery that you have to carry in your pocket. But though the design might require a few tweaks, the concept has been attracting significant attention in Japan, where it has been featured on TV — via redwolf.newsvine.com

People in power have always tried to prevent the common folk from obtaining knowledge that threatens their power. This happened in the 16th century, and it is happening now.

Information advantage has always equalled power.

The group in society that can control what the other groups know and don’t know will rise to power in every other aspect. Therefore, information technology has always been policed and even militarized to some extent, by any group that obtains the ability to control it.

It has been the case since the dawn of civilisation that some group has told everybody else what the world looks like, how it works, and what happens in it. (Usually, that group is placed at the centre of that particular world view in one way or another.) This continues today, with governments all over the world trying to put their spin of events on the news flow, putting themselves in a good light to literally get away with murder.

The quest for the net’s liberty is not a fight for some silly right to download free music. It is much larger than that: it breaks a hegemony that has stood for millennia — via redwolf.newsvine.com