A set of smart vending machines at the University of Waterloo is expected to be removed from campus after students raised privacy concerns about their software.
The machines have M&M artwork on them and sell chocolate and other candy. They are located throughout campus, including in the Modern Languages building and Hagey Hall.
Earlier this month, a student noticed an error message on one of the machines in the Modern Languages building. It appeared to indicate there was a problem with a facial recognition application.
“We wouldn’t have known if it weren’t for the application error. There’s no warning here,” said River Stanley, a fourth-year student, who investigated the machines for an article in the university publication, mathNEWS.
While I have no idea how much a computerized vending machine costs, I found this article about a age/gender classifier that runs on a Raspberry Pi 4.
Looking at the machine’s big touchscreen, I think this classifier would fit on the SBC or require a relatively small upgrade.
Yikes, smh… Yep that’ll do it. I hate this timeline.
Same Raspberry Pi foundation that hired a cop with a background in surveillance tech as their “resident maker”?
The error message says “.exe” and looks like a dot net namespace.