New “Gender Recognition” App Adopted by Bars to Scan Patrons

SAN FRANCISCO, Ca – Bars and other establishments around the U.S. and elsewhere are beginning to adapt new cell phone applications that allows users identify the supposed age and gender of patrons.

Right now, cameras in Monaghan’s Bar in San Francisco are identifying the gender and approximate age of everyone who walks in. The bar is using an app called “SceneTap” which is anonymous, free facial detection software. SceneTap feeds the information it collects from cameras in the bar to a cell phone app. Could anything possibly go wrong with this idea?

“It’s creepy… It’s a very creepy idea,” said resident Matt Lieb in the CBS 6. video posted above.

Rebecca Jeschke of the Electronic Frontier Foundation thinks using facial recognition to determine who is in a bar and when should cause concern–especially regarding privacy. And we think, in terms of gender variance. Partially because it is well understood that facial recognition exists on a significant racial bias, is computer generated facial recognition any different?

“Findings (are) that people are better at recognizing faces of people from their own race,” says Daniel B. Wright, a psychology professor at the University of Sussex in the U.K. Wright wrote a widely read scholarly article on the subject in 2003. “Here also, an own gender bias is shown: Males identify faces more often as male and females identify faces as female. Encoding a person’s hair is shown to account for approximately half of the own gender bias…”

According to the designer of the “SceneTap” application, Cole Harper, the app uses 16-data points to supposedly identify a person’s age and gender. His intention in creating it was soley so people could determine what bar or club to patronize and business owners could gauge what attracts certain people of a certain gender and age group.

As such, SceneTap is being using by businesses in seven cities including Chicago, Austin, Athens, Bloomington, Gainseville, Madison and San Francisco. Click here to check it out for yourself.

About the Author

Wild Gender is an online magazine and creative hub born out of gratitude for the gift of full expression. We are dedicated to creative practices that celebrate gender fluidity, identity and expression. Wild Gender prioritizes visual art, creative writing, and journalistic work by trans/gender-variant individuals who have never before been published in a public venue. Run entirely by volunteers,we are always in search of writers, thinkers, and creators hoping to participate in our growing community.