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Facial Recognition Technology

Facial recognition is a category of biometrics that maps facial features, stores the data as a faceprint and then matches the faceprint to a picture to identify the user. These systems are designed to identify people by who they are, not by what they have. Facial recognition technology looks at a face, creates a faceprint, and then matches that faceprint to one of the millions in the facial database, which then identifies who the person is, verifies they are who they say they are, and depending on the system, it will flag the necessary authorities. Facial recognition technology is predominantly used for verification and identification (Du Y, 2013). Apple has made this a consumer accessible technology by incorporating it into their latest smartphones as a security feature. Even though the concept of systemising  facial recognition has been around for almost a century and the technology has been utilised by the military for the past decade, it is only now becoming a viable product for the average consumer.

Technical overview of Facial Recognition Technology

For facial recognition technology to be effective, an in-depth map of the individuals face must be drawn. Identix’s version of facial recognition technology, FaceIt, uses each face’s distinguishable landmarks, called nodal points, to create a faceprint. Human faces typically have 80 nodal points, (Bonsor & Johnson, 2001). These nodal points, which are measured by the software, include the distance between the eyes, the width of the nose, the depth of the eye sockets, the shape of the cheekbones, and the length of the jaw line.  The numerical code created from the measuring of the nodal points is called a faceprint, which is then stored and used to cross-reference other faces.

Apple’s Face ID technology consists of the following basic elements:

  1. An infrared camera to read the depth map created by the dot projector. (DeAgonia M, 2017)
  2. A flood illuminator. This illuminator shines infrared light at your face, which allows the system to detect whoever is in front of the phone. (DeAgonia M, 2017)
  3. A regular camera. For facial recognition to work effectively, the process must begin with the capture of an image by a camera, (Chidambaram S, 2012).
  4. A dot projector to cast “more than 30,000 pin-points of light onto you face, building a depth map that is read by the infrared camera.” (DeAgonia M, 2017)
  5. A processing unit. The Face ID technology would be redundant if it didn’t have a powerful processing unit to make all the elements of the technology function properly. This unit is loaded with a “specific machine learning hardware called a neural engine that performs the recognition” (Glance D, 2017) of the face. (Apple, 2017)

All these elements work together as a facial recognition device Apple and many other companies have utilised in their products and services.

Historical Influences in Facial Recognition Technology

The humble beginnings of systemising facial recognition can be traced back to 1852. A system of prison photography was introduced, using a camera that soon became known as the “Angel Copier” (Tucker, 2014). This system of photographing prisoners was used to help identify prisoners and to enable record-sharing with other police stations. Then, in the late 19th century, a Parisian police official, Alphonse Bertillon, developed a sophisticated system of combining, storing bodily measurements, and mug shots into a manually searchable database. In the mid-1960s, Woodrow Bledsoe was the first to experiment with semi-automated computer-based facial recognition. Bertillon, unlike scientists of his day, tried to identify individuals, by precisely measuring body parts. He devised a system for noting key facial landmarks on each face, such as the width of the mouth or between eyes. He pioneered the ‘Bertillon card’, which paired the suspect’s full-face photos with their name, measurements, and other information. Bertillon himself acknowledged his method was flawed, as finding one specific face out of thousand is very difficult. By 1900, cheaper and more portable methods of photography were available to ordinary people, which led to the photographing of themselves and others in public. In 1919, the first FBI ‘identification order’ was circulated, with an attached photostat of a portrait of a wanted man. In the cases where no photo of the suspect was available, hand-drawings representing the witness’ or victims’ memories were used. Research by mathematicians and computer scientists in the 1980s and 1990s led to a linear algebra-based system called Eigenfaces. Eigenfaces plots a human face by focusing on the ways it deviates from the average face. A major driver for the magnitude of the facial recognition business is the spread of digital camera technology. Smartphone apps such as SnapChat, Facebook, and Instagram have users willingly posting and tagging images of themselves, and this has made a huge trove of data that can be used for identifying individuals. With the increasing accessibility of facial recognition technology, companies have started to experiment with this technology to drive sales and attention, as Coca-Cola Zero did with the Facial Profiler app on Facebook, (Tucker 2014). Now that facial recognition technology is becoming more and more readily available to consumers, how society’s way of life will be and continue to be shaped.

Impact of Facial Recognition Technology

Facial recognition plays a key role in industrial applications such as intelligent video surveillance systems and human-computer interface (Du Y, 2013) and in law enforcement situations, such as eliminating voter fraud, security, and monitoring foreign visitors or immigrants, (Johnson R & Bonsor K, 2001). Occupying armies use portable systems to identify and track members of local populations, and high-tech facial recognition technology is now being used by the domestic police force. In early April 2018, the Chinese police were able to apprehend a wanted man by using facial recognition. The wanted man entered a Sports Centre that had nearly 60,000 people gathered inside for a concert. As the man had entered the centre, facial recognition cameras identified him and then flagged the authorities, who then came and apprehended the man wanted for economic crimes, (Wang A, 2018).

Apple has made facial recognition, or Face ID, a consumer viable product by incorporating it into their latest phones and using it to replace the fingerprint scanner. According to Apple, the chances of a random person unlocking a phone with their face is much lower than for fingerprint scanners, (Apple, 2018). Apple is so confident in their Face ID technology they have enabled it to authorise purchases from the range of Apple stores, such as iTunes and App Stores, and even to authorise payments using Apple Pay. With the success of Apple’s Face ID technology has come competing phone manufacturers (Samsung, 2018; LG, 2018) to create their own versions of facial recognition. In the near future, almost every phone, along with laptops, will have facial recognition. Banks may also incorporate this technology as another method of securing bank accounts and safety deposit boxes. Airports will, in the next few years, replace passport checks with biometric scanning (Dingwall, 2017). Facial recognition technology will allow a faster flow of travellers in airports, and will enable passengers to self-process their border entry without a manual passport check. Having a face scan instead of a passport check will reduce the amount of passport fraud, and will make it harder for wanted felons to leave or enter the country.

Facial recognition technology has been around for many decades, and Apple has made it into a consumer viable technology. With Apple using it as the main way to unlock their phones and airports incorporating it into their identification systems, almost everything will be using facial recognition in the near future. This technology will enable faster travel times, simpler banking verification, more secure smart phone locking, and quick criminal apprehension. Facial recognition technology is and will continue to shape how we live as a society.

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