Technology Strains To Find Menace In The Crowd
Facial recognition technology is moving forward despite some early embarrassments. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is staging a competition to cut error rates on 2002 tests by at least 90 percent, with the results of that competition to be published next year.
Well-known failures of facial recognition technology occurred in Tampa, Fla., and Virginia Beach jurisdictions because the systems could not compensate for changing environmental conditions. Critics also contend the systems led to a number of false positives; neither the Tampa nor Virginia Beach deployments led to any arrests. Those incidents have soured the market for the technology, says 3DBiometrics co-founder Lawrence Schrank, whose startup uses laser mapping of facial structures to identify people.
Still, the technology is improving rapidly and experts point out that facial recognition is the least intrusive of biometric technologies while utilizing the greatest amount of stored data. According to Identix CEO Joseph Atick, there are 1.2 billion digitized photos of people stored in databases around the world. New software is compensating for aspects that caused the first systems to stumble, such as poor lighting and eyeglasses.
Viisage Chief Technology Officer Mohamed Lazzouni promises that his company’s technology will meet the NIST requirements when tested again.
The United Nations’ International Civil Aviation Organization last year approved biometrics identification for international passports, and the United States has already given deadlines for foreign countries to have microchips containing that data.
Abstracted by the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center(NLECTC) from the New York Times (05/31/04); Feder, Barnaby J.
