These custom masks may not beat Face ID, but they could do some good

It might have started as a novelty idea, but a Twitter pitch for "Face ID compatible respirator masks" went to some unexpectedly cool places.

It started on Saturday when Danielle Baskin — "a product designer, situation designer, visual artist, and the CEO of Dialup.com," according to her website — floated the idea of printing faces onto respirator masks. You know, like the kind you'd use to ward off illness, prevent people nearby from catching whatever you've got, or protect from air pollution.

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(The "N95" designation is a filtration rating; you can learn more about those right here. You'd typically see these masks in hospitals, though they're available to the general public as well. If you live in a big city, you might have spotted a health-conscious person wearing one every now and again.)

Baskin's viral tweet links to what appears to be a half-serious website that claims these masks can "work with facial recognition software." That's not proven, though; Baskin even admitted on Twitter that she's testing the facial recognition claim. But the site also notes that these $40 masks "are still in development."

You might've heard about the Wuhan coronavirus, and the respirator mask shortages the outbreak threatens to bring about. Well, Resting Risk Face — yes, that's the name Baskin gave to the business — promises "we will not be making these while there's still a global mask shortage."

Baskin reinforced that point in a DM exchange with Mashable on Sunday.

"I'm trying to explain to people that I'm not hoarding masks for this project! I bought all my N95 masks in 2016 and I wear masks because I sometimes work with chemicals," she wrote. "No new masks were purchased."

In the website's FAQ section, there's also the extremely pertinent question: Is this a joke? Here's the incredibly honest answer:

Yes. No. We're not sure. Viruses are not a joke. Wash your hands when you can. And get vaccines when you can.

Obviously, this whole enterprise isn't the most serious pursuit, at least right now. At one point, Baskin referred to her product as "a novelty mask." But this is where the positive qualities of social media — yes, they do exist! — come into play.

As people absorbed the idea of a respirator mask with a partial face printed on it, the possibilities began to snowball. One person raised the possibility of bringing custom-printed masks into hospitals, to make the experience of being a patient a little more human.

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"Many people have mentioned that these would be great in hospital settings, especially children's hospitals," wrote in our DM exchange. "Waking up to a room of faceless masked doctors can be unsettling, but if masks had a unique print on them, maybe being in a room of doctors would be a more warm or lighter experience."

There are doubts as to whether the masks could actually beat facial recognition software, since that technology relies on 3D mapping. Baskin suggested that users could make a face map of their mask-wearing self, but there's also potential in the other direction, with a mask that could potentially beat Big Brother at its own facial recognition game.

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She acknowledged in our DM exchange that while the idea isn't entirely serious, that doesn't mean it'll never happen. "I'm not sure if it's a joke or not. There's dystopian humor in this project, for sure," Baskin wrote. "But it's a thing that's possible to create."

That said, she added, it's definitely on the "back burner" for now.