Helping Santa stay undetected from surveillance tech this Xmas

In a world of constant surveillance through CCTV cameras, sateliite imagery and everpresent phone cams, it has become increasingly difficult for Santa Claus to work his annual holiday magic in secret, as tradition calls for. While St.Nick has acquiesced to tracking by some military organisations, there are growing concerns that location capture and videod sightings will lessen the magical efforts of Santa's annual delivery drive and lead to lower levels of holiday spirit, year-on-year. 

In response, the innovation team at creative agency Amplify has applied some technology of its own to help Santa avoid detection during his annual sojourn across the globe. "In a world of constant surveillance it's imperative we protect Santa and allow him to deliver gifts undeterred," says Amplify creative Ali Munro. "It's terrifying to think modern technology which is meant to improve our lives could ruin Christmas." 

Inspired by anti-surveillance fashion, its design team has come up with new undetectable Santa Suits, using a series of "adversarial patch designs" that trick AI detection software into believing Santa wearing the outfit is merely a part of city wildlife.

Clockwise from top right: Fox suit for London; Racoon suit for Los Angeles; Rat suit for New York; Pigeon suit for Paris.

The first versions of these suits have been designed with intimate knowledge of local wildlife by Amplify in the cities where it has global offices, namely: a seagull suit for Sydney; a fox suit for London; a racoon suit for Los Angeles; a rat suit for New York; and a pigeon suit for Paris. 

While festive spirit might have been a motivating factor behind the new suit designs, Amplify showed its true colours when admitting more selfish ulterior motives, including being starstruck by celebrity and trying to curry favour with younger generations.

"The beliefs of Gen Alpha are an extremely important growth area for us, so being able to protect them with this sort of innovation is an important task for us," divulged Amplify strategy director Rachel Matovu. Also, "working with such an iconic figure present in so many cultures is an opportunity we couldn’t let go," Amplify's design team revealed. 

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