mendax.org

As expected, biometrics use is expanding, most recently by Grampian police in the UK. Deciding to invest in facial recognition software, the police department hopes to compliment its fingerprint recognition systems to speed up information processing.

What interested me most about the report is a note about digital imaging compared to analog systems previously in use. My past cryptography experience tells me that facial recognition is still rather innacurate, though I never had a chance to investigate digital vs analog biometric systems. In the research I’ve read, facial recognition is innaccurate not only by way of software algorithms (presumably having to deal with undetailed video capture), but also because only straight-on facial shots are able to properly be analyzed.

With digital video capture, it may be possible to better analyze video capture at awkward angles, though that’s not quite good enough. At an accuracy of around 75%, a number of false positives will arise, which means law enforcement will have to be sure not to rely too much on the technology and doublecheck whatever output the systems give. Fortunately, this shouldn’t be an issue as long as police use these biometrics as intended, but that doesn’t mean the system can’t easily be abused.

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