Facial Recognition

CCTV surveillance is constantly evolving and is offering many more options. Facial Recognition systems are one of the latest. The technology system was originally designed as a counter-terrorism measure to help police identify individuals of interest from hundreds of people recorded by CCTV cameras deployed to cover public areas.

Facial Recognition systems are able to automatically identify a face from within a crowd of individuals. The applications use sophisticated algorithms to determine a match to information that has been previously stored.

Applications for Facial recognition range from shopping centres being automatically alerted when known thieves enter their premise, through to control systems that only allow access to specified individuals. This can range from secure locations through to authorising the use of specific equipment.

Facial Recognition systems work in a number of different ways. The traditional system uses a standard camera and software that can compare some features of your face to a database of photos. By looking at key features such as eye position, or the slope of your jaw, it may be able to recognise a face. New technologies are more reliable and use multiple cameras and do a 3D comparison. This compares many more features of a face against a stored image. There are also systems which are able to identify skin patterns such as lines, moles, spots and other facial characteristics.