Facial Recognition Fraught with Inaccuracies
November 2, 2016
Images of more than 117 million adult Americans are with law enforcement agencies, yet the rate of accurately identifying people accurately is minuscule.
A news report by The Register titled Meanwhile, in America: Half of adults’ faces are in police databases says:
One in four American law enforcement agencies across federal, state, and local levels use facial recognition technology, the study estimates. And now some US police departments have begun deploying real-time facial recognition systems.
Though facial recognition software vendors claim accuracy rates anywhere between 60 to 95 percent, statistics tell an entirely different story:
Of the FBI’s 36,420 searches of state license photo and mug shot databases, only 210 (0.6 per cent) yielded likely candidates for further investigations,” the study says. “Overall, 8,590 (4 per cent) of the FBI’s 214,920 searches yielded likely matches.
Some of the impediments for accuracy include low light conditions in which the images are captured, lower procession power or numerous simultaneous search requests and slow search algorithms. The report also reveals that human involvement also reduces the overall accuracy by more than 50 percent.
The report also touches a very pertinent point – privacy. Police departments and other law enforcement agencies are increasingly deploying real-time facial recognition. It not only is an invasion of privacy but the vulnerable networks can also be tapped into by non-state actors. Facial recognition should be used only in case of serious crimes, using it blatantly is an absolute no-no. It can be used in many ways for tracking people, even though they may not be criminals. Thus, it remains to be answered, who will watch the watchmen?
Vishal Ingole, November 2, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
NTechLab as David to the Google Goliath of Facial Recognition
October 27, 2016
The article titled A Russian Startup is Beating Google with Eerily Accurate Facial Recognition Technology on Business Insider positions NTechLab as the company leading the industry in facial recognition technology. In 2015, the startup beat Google to win the “MegaFace” competition. The article explains,
NTechLab sets itself apart from its competitors with its high level of accuracy and its ability to search an extensive database of photographs. At the MegaFace Championship, NTechLab achieved a 73 percent accuracy with a database of 1 million pictures. When the number dropped to 10,000 images, the system achieved a jaw-dropping accuracy of 95 percent. “We are the first to learn how to efficiently handle large picture databases,” said NTechLab founder Artem Kukharenko to Intel iQ.
The startup based its technology in deep learning and a neural network. The company has held several public demonstrations at festivals and amusement parks. Attendees share selfies with the system, then receive pictures of themselves when the system “found” them in the crowd. Kukharenko touts the “real-word” problem-solving capabilities of his system. While there isn’t a great deal of substantive backup to his claims, the company is certainly worth keeping an eye on.
Chelsea Kerwin, October 27, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Why Are Ads Hiding Themselves
June 25, 2015
The main point of an advertisement is to get your attention and persuade you to buy a good or service. So why would ads be hiding themselves in a public venue? Gizmodo reports that in Russia certain ads are hiding from law enforcement in the article: “This Ad For Banned Food In Russia Itself From The Cops.” Russian authorities have banned imported food from the United States and European Union. Don Giulio Salumeria is a Russian food store that makes its income by selling imported Italian food, but in light of the recent ban the store has had to come up with some creative advertising:
“Websites are already able to serve up ads customized for whoever happens to be viewing a page. Now an ad agency in Russia is taking that idea one step further with an outdoor billboard that’s able to automatically hide when it spots the police coming.”
Using a camera equipped with facial recognition software programmed to recognized symbols and logos on officers’ uniforms, the billboard switches ads from Don Giulio Salumeria to another ad advertising a doll store. While the ad does change when it “sees “ the police coming, they still have enough time to see it. The article argues that the billboard’s idea is more interesting than anything. It then points out how advertising will become more personally targeted in the future, such as a billboard recognizing a sports logo and advertising an event related to your favorite team or being able to recognize your car on a weekly commute, then recommending a vacation. While Web sites are already able to do this by tracking cookies on your browser, it is another thing to being tracked in the real world by targeted ads.
Whitney Grace, June 25, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
