Face recognition biometrics wedded to cell phones
Face and iris recognition biometrics are good technologies, but people have to play along: They have to place their faces near the glass, look straight into the camera, make sure the light is just right; the U.S. intelligence community’s researchers want to solve this problem
Are you worried about the erosion of privacy brought about about by the increase use of surveillance and biometrics? Now you will have to worry more. The reason: new biometric software solves some of the problems afflicting face and iris recognition technology. Lewis Page writes that to work properly, people have to agree to play along with devices which try to recognize them: They have to place their faces near the glass, look straight into the camera, make sure the light is just right, etc. It is precisely because these conditions do not always exist that these biometric technologies are not always regarded as the most effective.
Now, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) is looking to change that. Researchers at the agency are looking to do iris and face-scans from far away, and “under uncontrolled acquisition conditions.” They are launching a new project, “Biometrics Exploitation Science and Technology” (BEST) to find new ways to get this face and eye data, even when the subject is moving and the lighting is less than ideal. “The minimum objective is to exceed by a factor of three what is commercially available today, with recognition performance similar to that achieved with the cooperative or conditioned individual under controlled acquisition,” a recent announcement to industry notes.
There is interest in this approach. A recent meeting in Virginia to discuss the project drew more than 130 researchers and executives. Many were the usual suspects — from well-established defense contractors such as General Electric, Harris, Batelle, and Raytheon. There were representative from more obscure firms. Conway, New Hampshire-based Animetrics is showing a “portable face recognition” program for the iPhone, called iFace. In addition to wooing spies, the company has a commercial edition of the software. “iFace Celebrity Edition…. match[es] you to your most similar celebrity,” the company promises. “The elegant simplicity of the iPhone makes this application both easy to use and very fun… The iFace output of the top celebrities who resemble your face will be popular among social networkers.”
