As facial recognition technology spreads across Britain's public spaces, a new generation of designers believes privacy could become the next big fashion trend.
Companies are incorporating "adversarial patterns" into garments—carefully designed arrangements of shapes, colors and repeated motifs that exploit weaknesses in some computer vision systems.
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Advances in computing have made it easier to embed such patterns into commercially viable clothing, according to designers.
However, experts caution that effectiveness depends on the surveillance system and conditions.
Nick Tidball, co-founder of clothing brand Vollebak, thinks adversarial clothing is on the verge of going mainstream.
"Anti-surveillance feelings are so widespread that all it would take is for a single celebrity to wear one of these garments to a high-profile event for it to take off," he said.
Tidball added that such clothing wins on multiple levels: practicality, fashion, making a public statement, spreading awareness about privacy, and encouraging debate.
Unlike traditional CCTV, modern computer vision systems can identify faces, track individuals across cameras, and search footage at scale.
Recent generative AI advances have made automated identification cheaper and more accessible to police, retailers, and private businesses.
Britain's biometrics watchdogs have warned against this expansion, calling for more laws and a regulator to curb misuse.
Evidence shows that Black and Asian people are more likely to be incorrectly identified than white people, fueling public concern.
A recent poll found nearly 60% of people believe facial recognition is "another step towards turning the UK into a surveillance society."
