The Emergence of Facial Recognition Technology
Facial recognition has an image problem. In 2014, a Denver man was arrested for robbing two banks on the basis of surveillance video stills shown to acquaintances and his ex-wife. The case was dismissed, but the man was rearrested a year later — this time based on FBI facial recognition technology.
The problem? The man who was arrested had a distinct mole on his face; the suspect in the image did not. Furthermore, a height analysis on the surveillance video found a 3-inch difference between the defendant and the suspect on camera. The case was dismissed a second time.
That’s not to say facial recognition is without its success stories. While the wrongful identification case may serve more as a cautionary tale than a mainstream occurrence in law enforcement’s use of facial recognition, the technology itself has had to contend with problems of bias and accuracy.
For instance, a 2012 study showed that face recognition systems are 5 – 10% less accurate when trying to identify African Americans as compared to white subjects. The study also found that female subjects were more difficult to recognize than males, and younger subjects were more difficult to identify than older adults.
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http://insights.globalspec.com/article/4017/the-emergence-of-facial-recognition-technology?id=-386028149&uh=cee4c9&email=HomeRunInstall%40gmail%2Ecom&md=170131&mh=f9a9ef&Vol=Vol17Issue7&Pub=1&LinkId=1842494&keyword=link_1842494&et_rid=1013656224&et_mid=83398597&frmtrk=newsletter&cid=nl