Design
The Metro Stations of São Paulo That Read Your Face
As a Personal Data Protection Bill sits in Brazil’s congress, a privately operated transit line debuts a product that has privacy advocates worried.
Via Quatro, the concession holder of São Paulo Metro’s Yellow Line, has recently installed a new set of interactive platform doors that display ads and information in three stations. They also use sensors with screens and facial recognition technology to monitor the reaction of viewers to what is being displayed—and that has privacy advocates worried.
So far, the vendor has issued a single press release on the matter, where few details were given and privacy issues were unmentioned. “The least you can do when you engage in an activity of this kind is to inform the people which are going to be affected by it,” says Jacqueline Abreu, coordinator of the Privacy and Surveillance area of InternetLab, an independent research organization.