Effectiveness of IR LEDs for disrupting facial recognition

for distributing facial recognition

Do you mean disturbing? Or disrupting?

It's not something you would be able to rely on all the time. Security cameras that use IR to see in the dark could be blinded by IR LEDs, but cameras can also have IR filters.

It depends on the details of the camera, the distance from the person to the lens, and the brightness and directionality of the IR sources.

If you're screwing with an apple or windows depth map webcam image sure. You can screw with desktop computers and phones easily.

If you're trying to screw with a bank for an airport, or overhead high quality security imagery, or anything with a flash, absolutely not.

I doubt it distributes facial recognition at all.

I think that would make you draw lots of unwanted attention

You would be effectively screaming "I'm a person of interest"

It's about visual range. Cameras have a value for "max brightness" and "min brightness", facial recognition further narrows that range, where it can work.

The IR LEDs utilize this limited range to "blow out" the pixels in their area with "white/max" informations, overwriting facial info. So you must wear the IR Leds in your face or close by.

That camera may not have an IR filter, and the fidelity hasnto be low... both factors are not present in modern Ai optimized cameras (global shutter, min. 16 bit grayscale brightness only not 16bit divided on RGB, Filters etc.)

You are better off painting your face or printing faces on your clothes.