The Brazilian flank of Burger King denote a surveillance engineering marketing stunt this calendar week called the “ Hangover Whopper , ” observe the booze - filled days between Christmas and New Year ’s with facial recognition . All you have to do is obtain your bleary-eyed - eyed smiler up to a photographic camera , and the company says its boldness - scanning software system will judge how hungover you look and pass on out a corresponding coupon . Welcome to the time to come : a boring dystopia where the most nightmarish technology is just another cutesy promotional tool .
Burger King foretell the military campaign with avideospotted byMarketing Dive . “ At the ending of the yr , it ’s Friday every sidereal day , and the hangover boot in , ” a mistily robotlike voice says as picture of cheeseburgers glitch in and out over bastard computer code . “ BK deliver Hangover Whopper , a technology that scans your hangover stratum and offer a price reduction on the ideal jazz band to help combat it . ” The stunt go until January 2nd .
wake up in a post - Christmas fog after one too many glasses of vino , I was the perfect test subject for this Orwellian fast - food whatsis . The discounts only work on delivery monastic order in Brazil , but the fount - scanning happens in the company ’s mobile app , as well as a dedicatedwebsite(the site only worked on roving machine when I tried it ) . I gave the internet site license to access my iPhone television camera and posed for a photo . The Burger King software thought for a second , and then recommended the Double Whopper Jr. That ’s only a one on the hangover scale — separate that to my cephalalgia — but I did earn a fiddling discount for my privacy sacrifice : a coupon code for R$3.00 , or about $ 0.62 in American dollars .
Screenshot: Gizmodo / YouTube
For the last decade , advocate raised alarm over the crawl scatter of facial recognition , a applied science thatpromises to destroythe few stay shreds of concealment we have left . Just last week , theFTC banned Rite Aid from using facial recognitionfor five geezerhood after an investigation base the drugstore used a lazy implementation of the technology to falsely accuse thousands of people of shoplifting , including one incident affect an 11 - year - old girl . But for the most part , the undercover agent won . Today , facial acknowledgement is everywhere , and as you move through public spaces , you areconstantlyunder the prying lookout of cameras execute the technical school .
Here ’s the thing about facial recognition : it barely work . The engineering does a tolerable though not 100 % accurate occupation with the face of white world , but numerous studies show it’sfar less accurateat identifying smuggled , Asian , Latino , and female boldness . It ’s also functionally useless for other things likemeasuring your emotions , detectingpolitical affiliations , orfinding you a particular date , despite the dozens of companies promise digital phrenology . It ’s belike no good for detecting hangovers either , and if you dig a little , Burger King seems to allow that .
Burger King did not right away react to a request for comment .
According to the Lusitanian privateness insurance on the Hangover Whopper web site ( which begin , “ Even with a holdover , I declare … ” ) , Burger King describes the arrangement as a “ fictitious judgment of the level of your holdover . ” In other words , it may not be measuring anything . The good news is the ship’s company say it ’s not doing anything creepy with your data , either . Burger King promises not to deal your exposure with any third parties and says it wo n’t apply them for advertising or any purposes other than running the hangover puppet .
reckon the grimace one pee when trying to really emphasize a holdover , let ’s trust these pic are properly disposed of .
Burger KingFace IDiPhonePrivacySurveillance
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