Wen 丨 crooked
In Douban, there is a topic - what are the things that exist in the era of big data? There are more than 1900 answers, and some of them are to the point: in the era of big data, we will all be "naked".
We originally thought that such an era of big data had not yet arrived, but the truth is that it has quietly penetrated into daily life.
Intuitively, how would you feel if your bank card password was secretly obtained by someone else, and then the other party declared that it would not be abused? The face is more important information than the password, and when it is illegally obtained, it is more harmful.
At the 3.15 party, a company called Wandian Palm "became a hit", and the camera it produced had a face recognition function, once the customer entered the offline store and entered the range of the camera, the face information would be captured and recorded. In the future, which store the customer goes to and how many times he goes, the store staff will know.
For example, CCTV named Kohler sanitary ware, there are thousands of Kohler stores across the country, each store is equipped with a camera that can face recognition, through the background of the face recognition system, the information of each customer who has entered the store is shared by these stores.
In addition to Kohler, check the official website of Wandian Palm, the customer case column of the intelligent store patrol solution shows that the well-known brands such as the people's big pharmacy, the good product shop, the xicha, the Mercury home textile, the Jiuzhitang, the morning light stationery, the Mingchuang excellent product, and the good child are all wandian palm customers. When a third-party company uses thousands of cameras to control our consumer information, including all kinds of privacy, in this network that can be expanded indefinitely, everyone will indeed be "naked".
Behind the loud shouting of the slogan of science and technology for good, what is even more chilling is the evil of abusing technology.
<h2>Big data analytics or big data theft?</h2>
There is no privacy in the era of big data, and this conclusion may have referred more to the online world we live in before March 15:
Occasionally chat with friends and colleagues about a movie, open today's headlines, you will find that the relevant content about this movie is recommended, but it has never appeared before;
Because I want to lose weight, I searched for a circle of weight loss recipes on my mobile phone at noon, brushed vibrato at night, and recommended videos were all how to make fat-reducing meals;
On the weekend, I went to the store and ordered a snail powder, and the Taobao homepage will immediately recommend a large number of snail powder brands "intimately";
Short videos, news, takeaways, taxis... As these Internet services become more and more mature, the competitive landscape tends to stabilize, and the Internet giants that are competing to please users have generally entered the harvest era, and they harvest not only the user's wallet, but also the information. As data collectors, they use big data or AI technology to form user portraits and labels in order to tap the deeper value of users and provide a foundation for the expansion of new business.
An industry insider said, "Every day, our behavioral data in the online world is labeled with different types of labels, and it has been sold countless times in exchange between institutions and companies."
Robin Li once said a sentence, quite controversial, "If they are willing to exchange privacy for convenience, in many cases they are willing", although this sentence is not heard, but the fact is that the use of privacy for convenience is common in the user group. They may not know that their privacy will be scrapped and bought and sold, or they may be forced to agree to privacy regulations so that they can use the services offered by the app.
However, users choose privacy for convenience, the default premise is that in addition to the platform, others can not see my privacy, especially the people they directly contact, which is why the Internet privacy leakage problem is getting more and more serious but has not caused a large-scale resistance from users. However, now, privacy leaks have penetrated from online to offline, and cameras have secretly grabbed user information through face recognition of offline stores, which are directly exposed to the people we contact.
You can imagine that after entering any store, the shopping guide knows your consumption records, consumption behavior and consumption level from the moment you enter the door, and even the consumption information on various platforms of the Future Internet is also opened, and after big data analysis, various user labels are formed, which are like a written price tag, bluntly telling the shopping guide "how much money can be made from you".
In the reporter's interview, the retail sales director of Kohler (China) Investment Co., Ltd. Shanghai East China admitted that the face interactive marketing solution provided by Wandian Palm is like this, "For example, this person comes over, and Shop B will prompt this person to visit store A, how to receive store B, how to quote, there is psychological preparation."
In such an era of big data, it will be normal to watch people get off the plate.
But come to think of it, is this really normal?
<h2>Wandian palm exposure may just be the beginning</h2>
On March 16, major social media ushered in the collective "apology day" of the listed brands, in which Kohler Sanitary Ware responded that the company had removed the camera overnight, and Wandian palm and Yolok also issued statements to apologize to users and the public, and began to rectify. In addition, brands such as Xicha and Liangpin Shop have also jumped out to clarify, saying that although we use the Face Recognition Camera of Wandian Palm, we "will never illegally collect consumer face data."
But such verbal statements clearly do not reassure customers. The roll call of the 3.15 evening party certainly has a certain deterrent effect on brands that use face recognition technology to capture user information, but this exposure obviously also makes the huge interests hidden in this industrial chain revealed. User data has gradually become the focus of competition among giants, and it is difficult to guarantee that there will be no more and larger "ten thousand stores".
According to the "enterprise information inquiry platform", Suzhou Wandian palm network technology co., LTD. was established in 2016, the legal representative is Zhou Shengqiang, has experienced two rounds of financing, the amount of financing reached 95 million yuan, investors include DT Capital, Yuanhai Minghua, Su Gaoxin Venture Capital, GSR Venture Capital, etc. Among them, Zhu Xiaohu is one of the directors and has entered as early as the A round of investment.
In just three or four years, Wandian palm has accumulated brand resources such as Dell, Kohler Sanitary Ware, Maxmara, etc., according to a manager, the amount of face data currently owned by their platform has reached hundreds of millions.
Although the current revenue of Wandian Palm is far from attracting the favor of Internet giants, opening up offline store user data is not only a boost to sales for brands, but also a great temptation for artificial intelligence companies and Internet companies eager to accumulate data resources.
At present, there are 7404 face recognition related enterprises in China, and the number of related enterprise registrations has exceeded 1000 for three consecutive years, and 1518 new enterprises have been registered in 2020 alone, and many of them are artificial intelligence startups. In the field of AI, the biggest problem outside of technology research and development is the landing of the scene, and the application of face recognition to offline marketing provides an idea for technology commercialization. Now that Wandian has been exposed, some small and medium-sized companies with insufficient commercial monetization capabilities may be eager to move.
After all, the 3.15 warning can not fundamentally curb the phenomenon of secretly collecting face information, but there may be more and more offline stores to learn how to use several cameras to "understand" customer information more quickly, which lurks in a larger market.
It is worth noting that this is also a two-way, reciprocal process of action, offline stores actively install cameras, the third-party platform to collect user consumption information "net" will be more and more expanded, and the more data accumulated by the platform, the more conducive to accurate user portraits, so as to feedback to offline stores. Therefore, with the interests ahead, it is almost impossible to expect brands and platforms to directly abandon the existing "cake".
<h2>It is imperative to eliminate the "face thieves"</h2>
In the "Report on The Abuse of Face Recognition Technology", the Beijing News think tank checked the permission settings of 78 popular applications, and found that more than 80% of the applications were loaded with face recognition functions, and the application types covered social, e-commerce, travel, information and other fields, but half of the applications would not seek the consent of users when enabling the face recognition function.
Offline, face brushing is also extremely common, traffic security inspection, identity verification, face brush payment, access control attendance, etc. are the scenes where respondents agree with the frequent application of face recognition, and most of them are mandatory and do not provide alternative options.
The application of face recognition technology in offline scenes did bring certain convenience to users at first, but in more and more scenarios, convenience is no longer the user, but to the "monitor". For example, developers set up a face recognition system around the sales department to distinguish whether customers are natural visitors or channel customers; the use of face recognition systems in the classroom to identify the number and duration of students napping, bowing their heads, and playing mobile phones.
When we think that these two cases are only extreme, in fact, when many people buy tea, medicines, and bathroom products, they have become the data of offline stores in front of their eyes. And this kind of quiet infiltration is shocking: when you walk into the store one day to shop and find that no one is receiving, perhaps because you have been labeled as a "low-consumption group".
Of course, the greater risk also lies in the gray industrial chain generated around face information. A professional said, "Our consumption records in various places, face recognition as an interface, through the way of points and surfaces can combine all the information ... The consequences of this are light to send accurate advertising, and heavy is that people with hearts may 'crash into the library' behind their backs, and your account information and face information may be connected, and our property security may have great hidden dangers."
From the current point of view, the hidden dangers brought about by face recognition are technically and normatively unsolvable. Users can enhance their awareness of privacy protection and refuse to authorize various apps, but when cameras quietly collect their faces, they are unconscious, and even if it is explicitly stipulated that it is illegal to obtain citizens' personal information, it seems that it will not stop enterprises from chasing the interests behind data collection.
This brings up a problem, in addition to making authentication more convenient, face recognition does not seem to have a deeper value, which is even less valuable than its hidden crisis. So, how do we deal with face recognition technology? Let face recognition land in more scenarios, or constrain face recognition to non-commercial categories?
After the increasingly serious privacy leaks come to light, discussions about the issue should be put on the agenda as soon as possible.
This year, 3.15 "surprised or not" passed again, we gradually realized that the influence of this party is weakening, but even so, as the most valuable topic of this year, it is a good thing to use face recognition to collect information and be exposed.
But will the face thief disappear as a result? In the face of interests, perhaps we still face greater challenges. And this war is closely related to you and me, and no one is immune.
[Titanium Media Author Introduction: Crooked Road, Internet and New Media in the Science and Technology Circle.] The WeChat public account of the same name: crooked road (daotmt). This article is an original article, and any form of reproduction without retaining the author's relevant information is not retained. 】