A facial recognition system is a computer-driven application for automatically identifying a person from a digital image. It does that by comparing selected facial features in the live image and a facial database.

It is typically used for security systems and can be compared to other biometrics such as fingerprint or eye iris recognition systems. The London Borough of Newham, in the UK, has a facial recognition system built into their borough-wide CCTV system; see also Closed-circuit television.

Popular recognition algorithms include eigenface, fisherface , the Hidden Markov model and the neuronal motivated Dynamic Link Matching. A newly emerging trend, claimed to achieve previously unseen accuracies, is three-dimensional face recognition .

Critics of the technology complain that the LB Newham scheme has, as of 2004, never recognised a single criminal, despite several criminals in the system's database living in the Borough and the system having been running for several years. An experiment by the local police department in Tampa, Florida, had similarly disappointing results.

See also

• Mass surveillance
• Face perception
• Privacy International
• Male/Female face typing by subtracting the eigenfaces

External links

• ID One, Inc. - a leader in facial recognition technology
• Introduction from How Stuff Works
• Identix, a vendor
• A New York Times article regarding the LB Newham CCTV scheme, dated October 2001.
• Privacy International