Vending machine error reveals secret face image database of college students

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Mars | Getty Images)

Canada-based University of Waterloo is racing to remove M&M-branded smart vending machines from campus after outraged students discovered the machines were covertly collecting facial-recognition data without their consent.

The scandal started when a student using the alias SquidKid47 posted an image on Reddit showing a campus vending machine error message, “Invenda.Vending.FacialRecognitionApp.exe,” displayed after the machine failed to launch a facial recognition application that nobody expected to be part of the process of using a vending machine.

Reddit post shows error message displayed on a University of Waterloo vending machine (cropped and lightly edited for clarity). (credit: SquidKid47 on Reddit)

“Hey, so why do the stupid M&M machines have facial recognition?” SquidKid47 pondered.