NINA’s Universal Union organises Ghòstati! workshops: collective experiments in visual self-defence against biometric surveillance.

Test how little face paint changes a local face-recognition result.

How a session runs

1. Bring water-based face paint and extra brushes

Start with the darkest and lightest colours.

A children's face-paint kit with brushes

2. Save a clean baseline

Open the lab and save your face while it is still clean. That gives you an ID to test against.

The lab with a face detected, landmarks drawn, and the readout showing match 0.00 against a 0.58 threshold, recognised as ID zero
Saved. The readout now reads your distance from that baseline, against the 0.58 threshold. At rest it sits near zero.

3. Paint. Break the lines of the face

In workshops people usually pair up and paint each other.

Two participants painting each other's faces

4. Go back to the webcam

Success is either no face detected at all, or your ID marked “eluded”.

The lab losing the detection box off the painted face
The detection square is no longer on the face. Screen from the first version of the lab.

5. A second check, no lab needed

Try any phone app with a face filter. If it asks you to find a face, you did it.

A phone camera app failing to find the painted face
The phone does not unlock either.

6. Reduce the paint and retest

A heavily painted face
The developer, painted by a 12-year-old kid. The camouflage worked... but would you go out like this?

7. Share what worked

Contributions are ranked by how subtle they are, so a look that takes two lines is worth more here than one that takes a mask.

The lab upload screen: a recorded clip with its metadata, a note field for moderators, an unticked consent checkbox and a disabled submit button
Record a clip, add what you did, then consent. Nothing leaves the browser until that box is ticked, and the receipt code you get back is what deletes it later.

Run one where you are

Facilitators can join the Signal group below. Host matching is not yet available.

Facilitators Signal group, or scan:

QR code for the facilitators Signal group