Britain's most tattooed man says UK's age check told him to "remove his face"
48 comments
·October 24, 2025tobr
eesmith
Not well. "When Face Recognition Doesn’t Know Your Face Is a Face An estimated 100 million people live with facial differences. As face recognition tech becomes widespread, some say they’re getting blocked from accessing essential systems and services." https://www.wired.com/story/when-face-recognition-doesnt-kno...
Posted to HN yesterday at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45667472 . No comments.
delaminator
Then they supply govt. ID.
The law does not mandate check via camera.
jamesbelchamber
This was never necessary - Yoti (which I think is being used in this case) has a tool that allows you to validate your identity to them, and then use that to validate only that you're over 18 to third parties. Yivi (a Dutch non-profit) even has an open source version, and it works really well.
I have no clue why these "facial age estimation" technologies are being pushed in place of that. They're much worse in terms of privacy and accuracy, and they're easier to trick if you want to bypass them.
Flere-Imsaho
Gary's Mod (a videogame that uses the Half Life 2 engine) is being used to bypass these live face checkers [0]. It's primitive, but I can see in the future full-on AI driven face generation doing this job. It'll basically become a arms race between the checking technology and the fake face generation.
jimbohn
It's truly saddening that we have to solve this problem technically, whereas it should have been solved politically (or better, this absurd thing should never have been considered). The fact that it can be slightly contained by more technically capable people is worse, because instead of shocking everyone all at once it allows you to boil the frog as a politician.
amelius
Add this to:
Falsehoods lawmakers believe about faces.
isodev
While I can imagine this is very frustrating, I think we can definitely see "facial accessories" becoming more mainstream as ways to evade "unsolicited surveillance". Like... imagine someone invents glasses with an outward looking camera that can stream all their surroundings without proper opt-in consent (where this is required).
spoiler
I can't tell if it's a sarcastic joke, but just in case it isn't and you want a bit of free anxiety with your coffee: the future is now, old man!
CuriouslyC
We're entering a world where hacking facial recognition is going to be a big thing. People are going to start wearing masks in public because of ICE, and to avoid repercussions for going to protests, and that's going to normalize a slippery slope. We're going to end up all Anonymous.
LeoPanthera
Countries with internet age verification don't have ICE.
At least for now.
walthamstow
During the last UK election, Channel 4 went undercover with the Reform team in Clacton and captured some interesting video including Farage's aide saying "when Reform are in government, our police officers will be paramilitaries"
The aide still works for Reform.
https://www.channel4.com/news/exclusive-undercover-inside-re...
jalapenos
Good time to put money into neck gaiters
delaminator
The UK's Online Safety Act requires website owners to verify ages but it doesn't prescribe specific methods for doing so.
It is the vendor supplying the website he is visiting that told him to do that.
sundell
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chao-
There's a deep irony in that his tattoos make him more uniquely identifiable than the average person.
n1b0m
Maybe he could use a Kier Starmer mask.
sjw987
The chap basically has a permanent version of those clothing items that confuse security cameras.
Perhaps we'll see more people sporting this look in the future.
sunrunner
CV Dazzle? If so, what are the real implications for the legality of CV Dazzle or equivalents? The 'most tattooed man' example obviously can seem like not much of a real problem for everyday people that haven't gone to that extreme, but I worry that any outcome from this will transform into other areas such as deliberate camouflage for, say, activists and protestors.
monegator
A few years ago, i think 2018, i was in munich and as usual i went to see the mueum of technology. They had this exibition about the future of surveillance as seen by cyberpunk artists and there was this part about hair style and makeup that would confuse face detection algorythms. It was brillant, but i never managed to find it again. I hope the hivemind here remembers or can point me in the right direction
voidUpdate
I think the keywords you want are "cv dazzle". The ones I've seen are inspired by dazzle camouflage, but if you wear them out in public I think that people will be more likely to pay attention to you, even if ai camera systems are less likely to
monegator
The point of the exibition was also to raise awareness, and speculated that in the future it would not be that unusual to see people wear camouflage
And this was before the cursed AI timeline we're living in right now
jeroenhd
News articles about the OSA always come up with the weirdest and most extreme edge cases when reporting how problematic the law is. "The AI company some website uses has a facial recognition filter that doesn't work on a man that looks more like an injured smurf than a human" isn't all that compelling a problem to have with the "share your screen with random companies before allowing to use a website" law.
Face scanning is only one of the options OSA forces companies to choose from. If that's all they offer, it's on the companies to implement a fallback for edge cases like these.
jimnotgym
But the law doesn't force them to have a fallback.
Anyone that the AI doesn't like is therefore excluded from those services.
bbarnett
And this is the issue. 100%.
Edge cases are fine. Not having simple, easy ways to resolve it should be illegal for any form of ID verification.
One example? Some of these apps require a Google Play account to install. Or an Apple account. This is unacceptable.
Why would anyone be gatewayed to their, for example, government services by having a valid Google account? Or their bank?! Google bans people. Cuts them off.
Doesn't matter why, or how often, all that matters is that it can happen.
ID verification should not rely upon firebase, Google's push notifications, a Google account, and so on. And yes, there are ways to avoid these things for ID verification.
I don't have a Google account. I do have an Android device.
jeroenhd
But the law doesn't stop them from having a fallback either.
The problem lies squarely with the companies contracting these AI services not adding a "facial recognition doesn't work? click here to try something else" button.
carlob
The problem lies squarely in the fact that some fundamental thing is getting contracted out to some company.
DoingIsLearning
> If that's all they offer, it's on the companies to implement a fallback for edge cases like these.
These news articles and the adjacent online discussion are textbook warfare psyops 'nudging'.
Doesn't matter if you are real/bot, being payed or not. The discourse is now changing the goalposts to focus on the details of OSA implementation, not OSA itself. Mission acomplished.
It's on governments to stop pushing legislation that slow boil us into autocracy. It's on us to not be ok with that.
Everything else is noise.
A1kmm
I've personally been unable to pass AI 'liveness' detection (which was a high-stress situation when it related to something my new employer asked me to do after I already resigned from my previous role) despite repeated attempts and all I have is alopecia areata affecting my eyelashes / eyebrows (a relatively common condition).
These models are discriminatory for a lot of people, I'd say, and shouldn't be allowed.
jeroenhd
I think these models are fine for people who they do work on, but it's idiotic to assume facial recognition works for everyone. I should be able to use a website if my webcam is broken.
The practical problems are all caused by AI companies lying through their teeth and making bold claims and their customers being dumb enough to believe them.
The actual problem that needs solving is the fact that you need to validate your age without a form of solid proof being available in the first place. In cases where everyone has digital ID already there are technical solutions to solve that problem, and until those are available for free, it's idiotic to require the use of such technology in the first place. The UK doesn't have common, accessible digital ID yet they expect digital identification of some kind to just happen.
elric
> "doesn't work on a man that looks more like an injured smurf than a human"
What the actual fuck is up with this statement? Human faces are complex, there are so many different cultures and all kinds of complex body modifications (including facial tattoos) have a rich history going back thousands of years. Some shitty cobbled together AI not being able to recognize that is the real problem. Not the facial tattoos. And the injured smurf comment was completely uncalled for.
sundell
[flagged]
etiennebausson
Remove his face mask, not remove his face.
I swear, the quality of some journalism is so shameless.
tobr
That part of the title is in quotes. It’s paraphrasing how the guy expressed it to point out the absurdness of being asked to remove a face mask when you’re not wearing a face mask.
jibal
The journalism here is fine.
beejiu
The face mask was his face.
I wonder how it might affect people with medical conditions that make their faces look unusual. If the law only applies to pornography, most people in that situation might not want to go talk to a journalist about it.