Beijing Xiaomi Mobile Software Co., a Xiaomi company, has just published a more than curious patent: a “peeping eye” detection system, an extra contribution to facial recognition systems. Beyond curiosity, the idea is interesting, since it comes from the hand of a facial recognition system able to analyze when there is more than one person in the scene and if their eyes are pointing at the screen.
We are going to explain how it works, the hardware behind this patent and what is the main purpose of including this function within a device.
Xiaomi’s anti-peeping technology
As we read in IThome, Xiaomi has made official a new patent under the publication number CN112492103A, called (after the translation from Chinese) ‘Anti-peeping terminal method, device and storage medium’. The name says enough, but the technology behind this patent is curious.
The patent reports on a sensor capable of detecting intruders who are looking at the screen, as long as they are within a certain range
It is a sensor that works in real time to detect at least one face that appears within a predetermined range. That is, in addition to the face of the person who is already looking at the mobile (something that current phones already detect), there is a specific sensor that detects the face of people who may be looking at our screen.
The main objective is to avoid spying on the user to safeguard their privacy, preventing other people from seeing confidential content. No details on sensor integration, but to work properly it should be integrated into a system similar to Apple’s Face ID, which has already tried to emulate Xiaomi with the Mi 8.
As we always warn, patents are patents, since they only show the interest of a company in working on a technology. There are therefore no details about the arrival of this sensor to new devices of the company.
Via | IThome