New potentially life-saving app allows for the recognition of recreational drugs as nightclubs looking to open this summer.
Pill-iD App
UK creative technology agency Rehab and French advertising agency Herezie have today announced the prototype for Pill-iD, an app that allows users to scan pills used in recreational drugs with a phone camera, giving them an instant identification of the pill, it鈥檚 likely dosage, risk-level and predicted side effects.
Users simply open the app and can either use their camera to take a photo of a pill, or upload an existing picture. The app鈥檚 machine learning model, tensorflow.js (a google technology) will then try to identify the drug by searching Nuit-Blanche, a database on different known narcotics in the European market, before showing the user a likely match. All user data is kept completely anonymous and is untraceable. The app strictly never encourages drug use, but simply educates on the known risks and information of each one. The aim of the project is to recognise the widespread usage of recreational drugs like MDMA and reduce harm – it was developed with the founding principle of hoping to save just one life.
The tech behind the app includes Python scripts integrating with existing APIs and datasets, compiling the available drug information and example images for each. A machine learning model is built and trained, using an image input to predict which drug type in the data set is a “high confidence” match. As the available drug database continues to increase, the accuracy of the prediction model increases and wider categories of drugs could be detected.
Drug Usage on the Rise
Class A drug-taking is at record levels in the UK – the ONS crime survey 2020 shows that around 1.3 million adults aged 16-59 took a class A drug last year. Contrary to beliefs, the rise isn鈥檛 just limited to young students, but also people working office jobs, parents, business owners – it鈥檚 people from all walks of life. As the roadmap out of lockdown is now known and people begin to anticipate festivals and nightclubs opening, the need for drug harm reduction has never been more urgent. Some relevant charities are worried that 鈥榩ent-up鈥� energy could increase the amount people take.
Pill-iD currently exists as a working prototype, with the goal of being released by Winter 2021. It offers an exciting example of how machine learning and AI can be used to help people and even save lives.
The idea was born out of Herezie and made possible by Rehab鈥檚 鈥楬ack Week鈥� programme, where the agency sets aside a week to find creative solutions to pertinent societal issues. Each 鈥榟ack鈥� focuses on a topic the team feels passionately about and utilises Rehab鈥檚 diverse skills and expertise as creative technologists, using the same creative process that the business employs on its client work.
Rob Bennett, CEO of Rehab, commented: 鈥淭he issue of recreational drugs and the need for harm reduction are a critical health problem across Europe, and we鈥檙e proud to have developed this app with Herezie. The topic is undoubtedly taboo for some, but our Hack Weeks all aim to address real, societal issues – which this very much is. Recreational drug use should not be encouraged, but using technology to help people absolutely should be. If we can save just one person鈥檚 life with this app, then we鈥檝e done our job.鈥�
