facial recognition technology

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.

On July 19, electronics giant NEC announced it has developed the world’s first automated border control system that uses facial recognition technology capable of identifying people inside their automobiles. The system is already in operation at checkpoints on the Hong Kong - Shenzhen border.

IT'S like something out of James Bond - but Lancashire police are among the first forces in the country to use pioneering facial recognition technology. Police are piloting a scheme that takes high-tech images of suspects and stores them on a national database.