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.
Best case scenario the machine has some sort of standard software with facial recognition code, but no hardware in the machine. Would he interesting to know.
Unfortunately its got the hardware for it https://www.invendagroup.com/vending-machines
Oh geez. These corporations are trying to be evil every way they can.
MARS isn’t do a good job of proving you wrong.
I’m confident I don’t need a vending machine to know any of that.