Slashdot Log In
3D Biometric Facial Recognition Comes To UK
Posted by
timothy
on Sun Nov 28, 2004 05:11 AM
from the are-you-ready-for-your-closeup? dept.
from the are-you-ready-for-your-closeup? dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "In the UK, where the recent Queen's speech about national identity cards generated lots of -- mostly negative -- coverage, another potentially invasive technology is being tested with very few criticism. For example, several police departments are now testing a 3D biometric facial recognition software from Aurora, a company based near Northampton. The use of facial recognition 'is rapidly becoming the third forensic science alongside fingerprints and DNA,' according to a police officer who talked to BBC News for 'How your face could open doors.'" (More below.)
"The company claims its software is so sophisticated it can make the distinction between identical twins. And if the civil liberties groups continue to be neutral, this technology could also be deployed in airports or by private companies. Even banks are thinking to put cameras in their ATM machines to identify you. The good thing is that you will not have to remember your PIN. On the other hand, as with every new technology, is it safe for your privacy and is it possible to hack the system? Read more before making your decision."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Virtual ID card (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously that's a privacy concern - but how can you regulate face recognition? It's fundamentally no different from having a live cop recognize your mug.
foolproof (Score:5, Insightful)
Aurora say that they have a zero failure rate, but this is not proof on the "uniqueness" of their identification.
New technology like this very quickly becomes "magic" to the general public and the end users, and there is indeed a difference in the computer recognising your face vs a live cop... the computer is more likely to be assumed to be infallible
Parent
When they outlaw balaclava's... (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, are the cameras going to be set to raise an alert when someone walks down the street that they can't distinguish? Will police occasionally stop you and ask you to remove your stetson so that CCTV can calm down?
How reliable can this be? And if they can scan and recognize a face this effectively in the data, can we reproduce it in latex a la Mission Impossible... well enough to fool the system anyway?
And do we want the government to have this much data on people?
I can certainly answer the last question.
Parent
Re:When they outlaw balaclava's... (Score:5, Interesting)
Too late. It is already against the law to, say, wear a balaclava at a protest.
Yes. Doens't seem to stop the coppers wearing concealing face gear or getting vicious when someone points a video camera back at THEM.
Parent
Re:foolproof (Score:5, Informative)
They then went on to totally demolish this relatively high level of success by simply using numbers. There's about 60 million people in the UK, so that's 600,000 people that can be rejected. That sort of failure is just not acceptable for something such as a national ID car scheme.
Parent
Re:foolproof (Score:4, Insightful)
The question is if this is enough not to deploy biometrics. First of all, do you use it for authentication (passport) or identification (crowd scanning, door opening). The latter is a lot more difficult. Then there is the question if you accept the odd failure, and plan for it. For instance if you fail to authenticate at airport, there could be a separate line manned by humans. Unfortunately, the 1% will not be spread equally, some people might be unlucky a high percentage of the time.
Another problem that I've not mentioned is that there is a balance between false positives and false negatives. That is the difference between other persons being identified as you, and you not being identified. Most of the time there is a (delicate) balance between the two.
That's the problem with biometrics. You cannot just say if a certain failure rate is acceptable - it all depends on the parameters of the system you are using it in.
Parent
Re:foolproof (Score:3, Interesting)
Even though it is not supposed to matter what hair do someone has it did seem to confuse
Re:Virtual ID card (Score:2)
Meanwhile, Suspect X is walking around freely wearing some prosphetics that alter the shape of his nose, ears, corners of his lips, etc.
Re:Virtual ID card (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Virtual ID card (Score:2)
The degree to which technology is involved can be regulated in certain places.
In Vegas, for example, it's not illegal to count cards, altho casinos will reserve the right to kick you out of the premises if they find out you are doing that. It is illegal to use devices to aid you in counting cards, however.
Unless privacy groups become more vocal and powerful than they currently are, it's unlikely that they will outlaw it. Forms o
Aurora hacked the Spice Girls (well Geri) (Score:3, Interesting)
According to him they said that they'd taken Geri Halliwell's face and put it on to the body of a model for one of her videos as she was pregnant at the time.
I wasn't sure if I believed what Aurora had said at the time, and I'm still not. But if its true, this technology must be pretty advanced as that was 4 years ago.
Re:Aurora hacked the Spice Girls (well Geri) (Score:3, Interesting)
For example, does the recent blurry video of Bin Laden [welfarestate.com] prove that he's still alive?
Re:Aurora hacked the Spice Girls (well Geri) (Score:2)
Compare with the Bin Laden video, which has 1 angle (head on), is blurry and no-one knows what Bin Laden really looks like anyway.
We're also comparing a relatively small TV production budget with US multi billion dollar black-ops budget.
Bad day (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bad day (Score:3)
I'd have believed more in iris recognition
Your face opens many doors... (Score:5, Funny)
You may jest but... (Score:2)
My wife has a 19-year0old daughter who has this incredibly pretty (tall, thin, blond, beautiful face, very pleasant manner) but rather dizzy 18-year-old friend. She has stayed with us a couple of times. She also inherited a lot of money that she's trying to spend quickly (go figure).
One morning I took her to the station. She was going to see her boyfriend at university. She'd bought a load of stuff to take to him because he's a poor student. Later on I f
I want to have a pin to remmember. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I want to have a pin to remmember. (Score:2)
OK (Score:2)
Effect on fashion (Score:5, Funny)
My first thought was, 'where should I paint the stripes on my face to confuse such a system?'. My next thought was 'actually, painting stripes on my face might cause worse problems, such as being called 'stripey' by small kids'.
All the same, it would be pretty cool if measures to avoid face recognition became a mark of toughness ('I'm a scary criminal, me, I have to avoid cameras') and then of fashion -- everything that's adopted by genuinely scary people winds up being worn by college kids 5-10 years later, after all. The result could be an interesting arms race between software designers and makeup artists.
Now I'm off to order my David Blunkett latex mask. Heh heh.
Article text (without the spam) (Score:4, Informative)
3D Biometric Facial Recognition Comes To UK
In the UK, where the recent Queen's speech about national identity cards generated lots of -- mostly negative -- coverage, another potentially invasive technology is being tested with very few criticism. For example, several police departments are now testing a 3D biometric facial recognition software from Aurora, a company based near Northampton. The use of facial recognition "is rapidly becoming the third forensic science alongside fingerprints and DNA," according to a police officer who talked to BBC News for "How your face could open doors." The company claims its software is so sophisticated it can make the distinction between identical twins. And if the civil liberties groups continue to be neutral, this technology could also be deployed in airports or by private companies. Even banks are thinking to put cameras in their ATM machines to identify you. The good thing is that you will not have to remember your PIN. On the other hand, as with every new technology, is it safe for your privacy and is it possible to hack the system? Read more...
Here is the introduction from BBC News Magazine.
The ethical debate about identity cards has been reignited following the Queen's Speech, but its facial recognition technology is being used in other areas. Police are hailing it as a forensic breakthrough and a new "foolproof" 3D version could eventually become a routine procedure at cash machines or workplaces.
Once the preserve of science fiction, biometric facial recognition has now become a reality. Despite its association with the controversy of identity cards, it is predicted to become part of everyday life.
But is the technology ready?
As companies become more security conscious, the process of having our faces scanned is set to become more commonplace. And new technology which can produce this in a more accurate 3D form could accelerate this trend
A firm which has developed the 3D software, Aurora, claims it is sophisticated enough to distinguish between identical twins.
The brave BBC reporter tested the software for us.
I underwent the procedure myself and it only took a few seconds. A camera used a near-infrared light to put a virtual mesh on my face 16 times. It merged these into one unique template and calculated all the measurements of my features.
3D facial recognition software from Aurora Here is a computer screenshot showing you how thousands of points map your face and produce detailed measurements of what you look like
[image] [primidi.com]
Now, the real questions are to know if the technology gives accurate results and if it's possible to hack the system.
The government's biometric trials for passports and identity cards have reportedly experienced a 10% error rate in face recognition. The Home Office denies this and says that in any case its trials were only testing the procedures and the public response, not the technology.
Aurora claims its software eliminates these alleged errors. Founder Hugh Carr-Archer says: "We can't say it's 100% but we've done tests and have a zero failure rate.
According to the police, the 3D technology is still too expensive to be widely deployed, but it continues to use successfully 2D images.
It works by scanning an image of a suspect's face - such as a CCTV picture taken from a crime scene or a drawing based on eye-witness accounts. This produces a 2D map of the face which marks attributes such as the distance between the eyes.
Then the computer uses an algorithm to compare the data of this face to thousands of others on a database of offenders - people who have ever been arrested or charged. Within seconds it lists the matches in order of relevance, just like a web search engine.
Of course, this technology is not approved by the justice and can't be used in courts. But it's used by the police
Re:Article text (without the spam) (Score:2)
Am I the only one who's worried by the implicit assumption that all crimes are committed by people who've previously been arrested or charged? This technology sounds ideal if you're a policeman looking for a plausible "usual suspect" to blame for an unsolved
Tinfoil hats aside... (Score:2)
This could save SO much time...
Re:Tinfoil hats aside... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Tinfoil hats aside... (Score:2, Insightful)
What are you going to do with all the accumulated time that you save? You can't exactly tack it on to the end of your life and enjoy a few more weeks!
And no, I'm not having a go at you, just everything that claims to save us time. Most people seem to waste their spare time watching shitty soaps or sitcoms or reality TV (or reading slashdot :D)
Feeble Queen's speech (Score:5, Insightful)
The current Labout government run by T. Blair is generally seen to be scaremonegering over things like terrorism and crime to justify a new raft of draconian measures. Each one of these measures has been a cynical attempt to limit liberty within the UK. There has already been a government funded surevey judgning the "peoples" attitude towards ID cards which, according to the government, showed an overwhelming support for the scheme. Until, of course, it was discovered that the survey was far from impartial and the sample group was so small as to be non-representative.
Technology aside I fear for my children's liberty, they are already unable to do the stuff I used to do as a child - like blow things up with home made gunpowder, whittle wood with a knife (yes knives are soon to be banned in this moronic country) and when they get older they won't be able to smoke a cigarette (yep, smoking is banned too).
No, don't be lured by the technology, this is a bad thing. I hope my American cousin's don't let the president push them into accepting a loss of liberty in the name of some ficticious threat. It looks like this country is starting to fall foul of the lie that is "The war on terror"
Re:Feeble Queen's speech (Score:5, Insightful)
So, Blair is pretty much like the other founders of the "Coalition of the Willing" (George Bush and John Howard). It seems strange that the leaders of the historically "most free" nations are all trampling over liberty now, while the Germans and Eastern European nations complain.
Parent
Re:Feeble Queen's speech (Score:2)
(This trend is just beginning; can you imagine what a paranoid schizophrenic could do with a nanotech desktop assembler? Schizophrenia often leaves intelligence untouched, or can even focus it...)
This message is not political; note that while one part
Easy to defeat (Score:5, Interesting)
This technology could be flawed by people just gaining and losing weight. Look at pictures of people who have lost a lot of weight and you'll see their cheeks, chin, even lips all look completely different. If this system is so "accurate" it can distinguish between identical twins, what happens when people eat too many twinkies or lose a few kgs?
Re:Easy to defeat (Score:3, Funny)
'How your face could open doors.' (Score:3, Funny)
Yo momma's so ugly that doors open whenever they see her.
facial recognition (Score:4, Funny)
Re:facial recognition (Score:2, Informative)
In Manchester, they've spent millions [bbc.co.uk] to blanket the city in CCTV cameras over the last few years with next to zero reduction in crime as a result. The police have started using mobile video units to
That list in detail (Score:2)
The UK Government's Important List of What Not To Do in IT:
1 -- Employ EBS
2 -- Employ EBS for pretty well every contract
3 -- Pay strangely high fees to EBS
4 -- Never complain when EBS fucks up, just start a new contract
5 -- Anything else to do with EBS
I can remember when the UK was pretty well without corruption at the national level, and it _wasn't even long ago_. Remember how terrible it seemed in Major's time when someone got a kickback for asking a question? It would just be line noise now.
Re:That list in detail (Score:2)
Yeah... it just seems so small now, compared to rail privatization / utilities privatization. It's true that the Tories did hide it -- question is, does Labor not hide it because they understand the English and know they don't need to, or because they tried to but aren't very good at it? I used to think the former, but I changed my mind after the Mowlam and Byers affairs because they just looked so amateurish.
Failed trail? (Score:2)
Re: Feeble Queen's speech (Score:2, Informative)
To be honest, I think it's reasonable to limit children's access to explosives.
Obviously knives aren't being banned - chefs would get a little upset. Carrying an "offensive weapon" [which can be pretty much anything if the police know how to frame a leading question] has been against the law since the year dot, and has never stopped me carrying a pen-knife.
As for smoking, it's being banned in public places [except pubs that don't serve food], which again sounds reasonable to me.
I'm much more worried a
How can we trust them? (Score:2)
Using facial biometrics provides an added, more accurate level of verification than such systems as an ID card (which can be lost or stolen) or a pin number (which can be forgotten or used fraudulently).
Am I the only one in the WORLD who knows what the "N" in "PIN" stands for?
Jeez...and I wanted to think that the lack of knowledge was limited to telephone monkeys and cashiers...
Re:How can we trust them? (Score:2)
As to your remarks, I am far from an "elitist prick", although I am willing to guess that you have a HOT water HEATER in your domocile, don't you? Asswiper...I'd give you more rebuttal if you had enough spine to post when logged in...as if you had the spine to even qualify...
similar faces (Score:5, Informative)
As with all such systems it doesn't recognise faces but a metric derived from the face. It's entirely possible that two or more different faces can have the same metric (within the limits of the measuring process.)
So what do you do if someone matches your metric and is a terrorist? Unless you solve the false positive problem, and in a population of a billion people there are always going to be many false positives, you haven't solved face recognition.
This is not a theoretical problem. Already people have been falsely imprisoned because their DNA matches some found at a crime scene.
This quest for perfect identification is a waste of time and money.
just smile? or don't? (Score:2)
Yawn (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, if you people are technophobes on this level, you should log off right now and sell your computer. You can probably use the money to buy enough wood to build a shack in the mountains somewhere.
Oh, wait, you'd never survive that way; you're probably a hoplophobe, too.
Yes, correct person, then... (Score:4, Insightful)
Seemed to work impressively until three people showed up at the door, one spied into the iris reader, door opened and the other two just tailgated through.
Fine, if it WORKED . . (Score:2)
Funny thing is, it's not a new concept. Before the advent of fingerprinting, law enforcement in a number of countries used a hand measured set of facial metrics to identify criminals.
One of the events that precipitated widespread fingerprinting was a day when a guy was picked up for being a shady character who looked just like a guy on a wanted poster. They get him in, start measur
Blunkett (Score:5, Interesting)
Non-UK readers shuld also be aware that Blunkett this week is facing charges of inappropriate behaviour when he was caught personally intervening in the visa application for his mistress' new nanny.
I find myself needing to give my face/fingerprints to a man who would appear to be a corrupt adulterer. How excellent is that.
Re:subversion (Score:2)
Re:subversion (Score:2)
Can a laser burn out a video camera? Well, obviously a laser of sufficient power can, but I'm curious if cameras are especially sensitive to such technology, such that a fairly low-power device can ruin it?
I'm surprised more people don't paint bomb the CCTV cameras, actually. Would be fairly simple and a fun game for vandals who wanted to actually annoy those in power.
Re:subversion (Score:2)
Yes, I've noticed that of course. But I've often had a look at the pattern when I'm sitting somewhere and tried to puzzle out a sequence that would be successful. The ones that swivel are easier and these ones I think can be done - it's sort of a logic puzzle.
The dark orb ones are harder though because you don't know where they're pointing. For these ones you'd have to wear a hat.
Re:subversion (Score:3, Informative)
Yes it would be
A laser is a light source that creates coherent light by bouncing photons backwards and forwards through an active medium with mirrors. The light it discharges doesn't have to be in a perfectly straight beam, in fact no laser has ever been made that shoots out a perfectly straight beam. After passing through a lens the light would still be homogeneous even though it would flare out more.
In answer to the grandparents post: no, lasers only interfere cameras because of