It is becoming increasingly difficult to disappear. Just ask Israeli mother and daughter Mali and Liel Yahalomi, who became the focus of a frantic search before they were found in Argentina and finally left alone. Security cameras watch streets, railway stations, airports, shopping centers and stadiums. All you have to do is look up and scan your surroundings. In many places, you will spot municipal signs warning that cameras are operating in the area, supposedly to protect us and keep us safe. But do they? In 2026, AI-powered systems are capable not only of recording people but of identifying them, tracking them and potentially linking appearances across different public spaces. In Britain, for example, police have expanded their use of Live Facial Recognition systems, including plans to install permanent cameras on Oxford Street, alongside deployment of the technology at London Underground stations. In Israel, meanwhile, the Knesset in May 2026 extended the temporary order governing the country’s biometric database. As the technology spreads, so does anxiety about its use. Studies have found that in some systems, Black and Asian people face a higher risk of being misidentified than white people. In Britain, public concern is already significant: a recent poll cited by The Guardian found that about 60% of respondents viewed facial recognition technology as “another step toward turning Britain into a surveillance society.” Now, a new generation of British designers is positioning privacy as fashion’s next big trend, using clothing to weaken facial recognition systems through “adversarial clothing”, incorporating sophisticated combinations of shapes, colors and repeating motifs designed to exploit weaknesses in computer vision systems and disrupt its ability to identify faces. Experts caution, however, that their effectiveness varies depending on the surveillance system and the conditions in which they are used. Nick Tidball, co-founder of tech-focused fashion brand