Protecting Anonymity with Face Paint!
We use organic, vegan paint, along with makeup techniques designed to fool facial recognition programs; to protect the Anonymity of activists who attend protests, for free!
The inspiration comes from the CV DAZZLE project by Brooklyn artist Adam Harvey, and the unprecedented invasion of privacy being perpetrated upon activists through the use of facial recognition programs in order to identify and silence dissenters, up to and including a plot to assassinate Occupy leaders in TX. 
We believe this is a fun, festive alternative to the masks used by many to protect their identity. We also believe the application of face paint prior to a protest rally is ceremonial, putting us in touch with the kind of rituals our ancestors engaged in when seeking strength, courage, and protection.
We began in LA May 1st, 2014 for the May Day General Strike
We're not stopping there however! Artists across the US have joined the Painted Anonymity Collective and we plan to continue providing this service at every rally & demonstration we're able to attend. We're actively growing a community of artists who'd like to participate in this identity-protecting action with us.
Every donation is helpful and allows us to purchase high-pigment, organic face paint, and other supplies necessary to provide this privacy-protecting service!
Thank you in advance for your support!
"Next year the Janus program, an initiative run by the director of national intelligence, will begin to collect photographs of people's faces from social media websites and public video feeds. Machines will then use powerful algorithms to pair those photos with existing biometric profiles.
The Janus program isn't alone: Facial-recognition technology is quickly becoming a mainstay of commercial and government surveillance systems. While it can provide benefits in automation and security, it is also a threat to privacy. Sophisticated algorithms can already extract information about your gender, age and even mood from a single image, and then link those physical attributes to commercial or government databases.
This powerful surveillance technology is cheap, ubiquitous and unregulated...
CV Dazzle is a response. It is a form of expressive interference that combines highly stylized makeup and hair styling with face-detection thwarting designs. CV, or computer vision, Dazzle is an updated version of the original dazzle camouflage from WWI, which was used to protect warships from submarine attacks. Like the original dazzle war paint, CV Dazzle is an unobvious style of camouflage because its eye-catching patterns and colors draw attention instead of hiding from it. As decoration, CV Dazzle can be boldly applied as hair styling or makeup, or together in combination with accessories. As camouflage, this facial markup works to protect against automated face detection and recognition systems by altering the contrast and spatial relationship of key facial features. The variations are limitless."
~ Adam Harvey