facial recognition

Video surveillance is the hot new thing. Tech market think tank ABI Research has just come out with a new study predicting that the global video surveillance market will "expand from revenue of about $13.5 billion in 2006 to a remarkable $46 billion in 2013." In a press release only Philip K. Dick could love, ABI gushes excitedly about all the fun new uses of the vidcams and databases you could be manufacturing, buying, and selling to the surveillance-craving masses.

Hung-Son Le, Umeå University, Sweden, has developed in his PhD dissertation the algorithms that give a computer the possibility of recognizing a face, even if only one picture is taken. The results can be used for safe and secure identity control or, on the light side, to find out to which famous persons you look alike.

The US and UK governments are developing increasingly sophisticated gadgets to keep individuals under their surveillance. When it comes to technology, the US is determined to stay ahead of the game.

Swiss bank Pictet has become the first in the world to rely totally on biometrics to control access for staff and account holders.

With Real ID Act regulations lurking somewhere around the corner, secure ID management provider, Digimarc, is well-positioned to help states comply with the new requirements. The fact that the Oregon-based company is already in more than two-thirds of U.S. state driver license offices certainly gives it a leg up as well.

"We're in 32 U.S. driver license programs, five Canadian provinces and Mexico with its voter ID project," said Scott Carr, Digimarc's executive vice president.

NEW YORK — A Swedish start-up is combining software and humans to help make photos and other images more easily searchable online, raising privacy concerns as the technology eases the tracking of people across Web sites. Traditionally, search engines analyze text surrounding an image on a Web site. So a search for "Bill Gates" might produce a photograph captioned with the name of the Microsoft Corp. chairman. But a search for a reporter's name might produce that same photograph if it had accompanied an article he had written.

The miSense trial at London's Heathrow Airport will use biometric fingerprint and iris scans to screen air passengers on selected Emirates and Cathay Pacific flights to and from Dubai and Hong Kong. The trial, which is voluntary, will run until the end of January at Terminal 3. To register for miSense, passengers must undergo an enrollment check at Heathrow where their passport is checked, identity verified and biometrics scanned. The fingerprint scanner (pictured) records prints for all 10 digits. A digital facial image is also taken, along with iris scans of both eyes (pictured). The whole process takes about five minutes and the biometric information is uploaded onto the chip of a miSense "membership" smart card. The card is activated 24 hours later, after further background checks to verify the identity of the person.