Is there any such surveillance tool as a lip reading camera?

Factual Questions
1

Is there any such surveillance tool as a lip reading camera?If there is how surveillance is gathered from lip-reading and does masking impact that surveillance very much ?

I look forward to your feedback

2

I don’t think there is such a camera, but if there was, yes, of course masks would interfere with that.

3

I assume that you want lip-reading software.

I doubt very much that there is. I know someone who lip-reads and she tells me that it is largely guesswork based on context. A lot depends on how familiar she is with the person and what they are talking about. If she watches a politician on TV, she can get the gist of what they are saying, but that’s partly because she will already know what they are likely to say. It’s not just lips either - it is the whole body that gives the clue about what they are saying.

Software that could interpret facial movements and ‘read’ what they are saying might happen one day if there was a demand for it, but not yet I think.

4

We had the technology 19 years ago.

(Someone had to do it!)

5
6

And from the general article Lip reading - Wikipedia :

7

True. Nitpick: Anticipated 52 years ago, though I respect your joke.

8

If it ever becomes prevalent, I think I’ll start wearing a baseball gloveat all times.

9

When it becomes fairly accurate and widespread, ventriloquism will become a standard elementary school subject.

10

I’m not sure this was the particular experiment I heard of a few years ago…seemed it was more current, so maybe it was a follow up that came later.

IIRC the experimenters concluded that babies can determine if someone is speaking their language without hearing any spoken words. They let them watch a muted television and the babies could see if the speaker is making the same types of faces as their mother (or others who spoke to them) in order to form the sounds, basically.

Maybe that insight is a step in the direction to making such a machine?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6308255_Visual_Language_Discrimination_in_Infancy

11

A sure cure for the (alleged) lip-reading opposition is to yak about how you’re going to throw the next guy a slow curve, and instead pound a fastball inside.

12

I can’t speak to cameras, but any kind of mask (and even facial hair) give human interpreters headaches.

13

“I’m sorry, davidmich, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

14

Facial recognition cameras have software that can defeat masks and one suspects that the intelligence and security services have had them for years. Otherwise, it defeats the purpose. A scarf wrapped around the nose and mouth would suffice and it would not raise suspicion.