Google Might Try to Buy Your Face for $5

 

, Google Might Try to Buy Your Face for $5, #Bizwhiznetwork.com Innovation ΛI

Unless you’re a digital hermit, Google probably already has a lot of data about you. Even when you don’t tell Google specific bits of data, it can make educated guesses based on your searches and how you use its services. One thing it doesn’t have is your face, and that’s what Google is after. No, this isn’t some Game of Thrones-style Faceless Men situation — Google reps are offering $5 gift cards to scan people’s faces.

Google representatives are approaching people in real life and asking them to contribute data to developing “the next generation of facial recognition phone unlocking,” according to a report from ZDNet. As compensation for helping out, Googlers are offering people a $5 gift card to Amazon or Starbucks. Are people willing to sell their faces to Google for five bucks? It appears they are, yes.

After agreeing to help out, participants are handed a phone inside a large case that obscured the shape. It’s common for engineers to use cases like this to hide pre-release phones during testing, which strongly suggests these devices are Google Pixel 4s. It reportedly takes a few minutes for the phone to acquire face data as people move their heads around, and then they’re free to paint the town red with their gift cards.

, Google Might Try to Buy Your Face for $5, #Bizwhiznetwork.com Innovation ΛI

The data is most likely feeding into a machine learning algorithm that will help the Pixel 4 recognize faces with some assortment of sensors and cameras on the phone. While AndroidSEEAMAZON_ET_135 See Amazon ET commerce has supported face unlock for years, it has always been 2D camera-based recognition. The iPhone, by comparison, uses a 3D sensor to unlock the device securely. Some Android phones like the LG G8 have imitated that, but Google is adding official support for 3D face unlock in the upcoming Android Q release. Leaks of the Pixel 4 also show plenty of sensors on the front of the phone that could contribute to secure face unlock.

This is all speculation for now — Google isn’t talking, and it probably won’t say anything until the Pixel 4 is official. The teaser and leaked images don’t show a fingerprint sensor in the traditional place, so Google has either gone to an in-display sensor or it’s ditching that all together in favor of face unlock. That would make the accuracy of its algorithm extremely important. In that eventuality, I hope a lot of people sell their faces to Google.

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