Remember the famous program 'White Collar' where they use facial restructuring to recognize a criminal who used plastic surgery to hide his true identity. Or the Bourne Trilogy, where they used facial recognition at every turn to capture Jason Bourne. Fascinating, isn't it? The concept has now left the world of reels and is finally becoming part of real life. From Amazon's Rekognition to the iPhone X's Face ID technology, this has been a dealmaker across the board.
Synthetic facial recognition comes to life with cameras' improved ability to select a facial image, process it, and analyze it to identify people based on their facial features. There are many who believe that this concept will help make our society safer, while some are of the opinion that its implications will be much worse than anticipated. Although the technology is still in its juvenile stage, the debate is indeed becoming very interesting with each passing day.
Surely, someday we will have some serious rules and laws regarding its use or 'misuse'. But before we go that far, let's understand the present and what it can do for us now.
First, let's understand the science behind it
Facial recognition technology works through biometric software that can identify and verify a face from a digital image. It works in three phases – face detection, scanning, target/fingerprint creation, matching and finally verification. Just like some visual search engine tools, this technique works by identifying some key factors in busy environments, which makes it quite useful for catching individuals and using them in crowded places. The applications of this concept are enormous and the final result will depend on how you decide to use it.
While it can be used anywhere, it has recently come into the realm of high-end smartphones. NEC is offering a more advanced alternative to portable screens. NEC's NeoFace Smart ID claims it can deliver next-generation applications targeting smartphones and tablets. This developed version provides higher accuracy facial identification and data logging along with integrated identification data collection. It can also include add-ons such as demographics, vocal patterns and fingerprints. All these details can be stored in a unified database or some local information platform like a watch list.
But the big question is what are the implications of this technology? Who is right – those who are for it or those who warn against it. Let's take a look at both sides and then leave the final decision to our readers.
Favorable Points
Like any other revolutionary concept, this one too started with some highly favorable points in mind. The best included better security for each person and for society as a whole. When your face is the only key that can lock or unlock your personal devices, it opens up avenues for much better personalization across industries, be it home or a retail store.
Imagine that you enter your home and adjust the lighting according to your personal preferences, your favorite music starts playing and when you sit down in front of the TV it plays your favorite channel and other things. You enter the supermarket and leave with all your purchases while the cameras recognize your face and automatically charge your credit card. Wouldn't it be a great relief from all those tiring queues at payment counters that sometimes take 1 to 2 hours of your precious money? weekend.
A facial biometric system can also greatly improve your security, as each individual who enters your premises will be scanned by the biometric software. A combination of these technologies can make it difficult for anyone to get into your system or your home. With today's technology, facial detection is increasingly reliable and reliable.
Lastly, these systems are fully automated, which means you don't need to spend any money on security guards to keep an eye on the system. This technology is capable of fully automating your process, in addition to ensuring greater precision. This also means lower costs and better convenience.
Unfavorable Points
We all live in a world where data storage is worth its weight in gold and its value increases 1,000 times when it stores information on more than 100,000 faces. A simple storage breach and everything could be ruined. Everything needs space, which means that for best efficiency of facial recognition systems, the systems only process approx. 10-25% of videos. Several companies are using multiple computers to combat this problem and process everything. However, unless the technology advances to the next phase, this challenge will remain in place .
Another point is about the camera angle, which has a very strong impact on the way a face is processed. To recognize a face, a camera needs to take photos from various angles along with the frontal profile, at 45 degrees and more. Any obstacles like facial hats or hair can easily lead to some problems. To avoid failures or mishaps, you need to ensure that the database is updated consistently.
So what does the future hold?
So, this is about the current scenario of this technology. In China, you can easily gain access to office buildings and check ATM withdrawals. Even in Europe, most retailers and luxury hotels use it to identify famous customers to ensure they receive special treatment. But there are some real-world problems that could become bigger challenges in the coming days. It's a big cause for concern for anyone who takes their personal space very seriously.
For example, NEC is promoting its facial recognition software with some noble goals, such as better identification as well as locating criminals and better security in public places. It is also offering services to various corporate clients and improving the protection of company facilities. NEC leverages advanced personal identification and non-invasively maintains verification over greater distances. Keeping so much data in the hands of private bodies and authorities can, at any time, lead to misuse and abuse. There are also possibilities of software being hacked, in which places huge amount of confidential data in the hands of data thieves.
There are several criminal entities that aim to breach and subvert databases and facial recognition systems. For example, many assume that facial authentication based on a smartphone's camera can be easily breached by showing a specific face on the screen. On the contrary, this can be easily avoided by including better detection of 3D facial data. Even if facial identification is fused with biometric identification data types, facial identification may not be as impactful in all cases. The same applies in terms of personal freedom, it can easily lead to laws and legislation requiring head and face coverings in public places. It further relates to a wide range of issues such as self-expression, increased police activity, religious issues and so on.
So yes, careful consideration is required before applying this technology. For example, London police recently made a huge mistake at Notting Hill Carnival, where the facial recognition system made more than 35 false matches between crowd and suspects and one person was “erroneously” arrested. It is expected that camera-based surveillance can provide much safer and a much safer society. They are still far from real life situations. Even during the 2011 London riots, this software was able to help with just one arrest out of 4,962 arrests made for this reason.
People sitting in dark rooms and watching hundreds of hours of footage cannot be the future of this technology. In the future, it will be protected with some important add-ons, such as DNA sequence analysis. Here the video will be treated as a scene that evolves like the DNA sequence. These techniques and software tools will completely transform automated visual surveillance. In the UK alone, they have sequenced more than three billion characters of DNA, but we still need to develop the resources and software that can handle this amount of data. But yes, the future is a bag of goodies that bears sweet and bitter fruits. Whatever it is, it will be quite interesting, for sure.
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