Saturday, September 3, 2011

Blog: Computers Can See You--If You Have a Mug Shot; aulity of facial recognition systems

Computers Can See You--If You Have a Mug Shot
Wall Street Journal (09/03/11) Carl Bialik

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) researchers recently presented data suggesting that facial recognition tools could identify individuals based on posed mug shots. The researchers demonstrated that, in principle, 33 percent of people photographed could be matched with a database of photos taken from Facebook. As part of the study, the researchers used images of 93 volunteers and compared them to Facebook photos of people on the CMU network. The results mean no one using facial-recognition software can claim "I can recognize any person in the U.S. at this very moment," says CMU's Ralph Gross. The problem is taking one image and comparing it to a wide set of images to find a single correct match. Comparing photos of just one person is easier and has achieved much more success. In a recent U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology test, facial recognition software misidentified individuals in photographs just one percent of the time. Compared to Facebook images, closed-circuit (CC) TV images will probably be even more difficult to use with facial recognition systems, according to computer-vision experts. "Identifying faces in CCTV-quality images requires human experts," says University of Cambridge professor John Daugman.

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