CUSTOMER PROTECTION
Today, facial recognition is the second most widely used form of biometrics, only slightly behind fingerprints. A facial recognition system's great advantage is that it requires little or no participation on the part of the subjects. Facial recognition technology is most commonly used in three areas, where it offers unique capabilities that make it more practical than other biometrics modalities for certain applications :-

  • Large scale records management, such as motor vehicle licenses and passports
  • Automated surveillance with a particular emphasis on automated watch lists
  • Access control systems for secured buildings or areas

HOW IT WORKS
Facial recognition technology, put into the simplest terms, is asking a computer to memorise the characteristics of a human face (either through live enrolment or from a stored photograph) and later to be able to accurately recognise that same person when presented with a photograph or live image of that person. Like all other biometric systems, facial recognition systems build face templates for permanent storage in a database. These templates are later used for comparison, one against another, in rapid succession. In general a ‘winner’ or ‘match’ occurs when the comparison result between two templates is higher than a pre-set threshold.

There are several major categories of facial recognition including facial geometry, skin texture analysis and facial thermography. The latest advances in facial recognition incorporate 3 dimensional face modeling. Some techniques ‘extrude’ 3 dimensional images from 2 dimensional photographs. Others actually capture the face and head in 3D during enrolment. The one thing that all of these systems have in common is that they all rely on photographic images of the human face.

NOTABLE USERS AND DEPLOYMENTS
  • As part of the investigation of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann the British police are calling on visitors to the Ocean Club Resort, Praia da Luz in Portugal or the surrounding areas in the two weeks leading up to the child's disappearance on Thursday 3 May 2007 to provide copies of any photographs of people taken during their stay, in an attempt to identify the abductor using a biometric facial recognition application.

  • The London Borough of Newham, in the UK, has a facial recognition system built into their borough-wide CCTV system.

  • A North American firm named Griffin Investigations, is famous for its recognition system used by casinos to catch card counters and other blacklisted individuals over the USA.

  • The German Federal Police use a facial recognition system to allow voluntary subscribers to pass fully automated border controls at Frankfurt Rhein-Main international airport. Subscribers need to be European Union or Swiss citizens.

  • The Australian Customs Service has an automated border processing system called SmartGate that uses facial recognition. The system compares the face of the individual with the image in the e-passport microchip, certifying that the holder of the passport is the rightful owner.

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