An independently developed 'biometric face recognition system'
has been approved and will be used for public identification, its
leading inventor said yesterday.
The invention, developed by Su Guangda, an Electronic
Engineering Department professor with Beijing-based Tsinghua
University, has been approved by a panel of experts from the
Ministry of Public Security.
The system captures moving facial images and features
multi-camera technology to lower the error chances of possible
mismatching. It will be used in many locations including airports,
post and customs offices and possibly residential communities as
well.
Facial recognition systems, which have been subject of
increasing interest since September 11 terrorist attacks, are
computer-based security systems which can automatically detect and
identify the human face..
The system 'lifts' the human face from its surroundings and
measures various facial points such as the distance between the
eyes, the shape of the cheekbones and a number of other
distinguishing features. It then compares them to the nodal points
computed from a database of pictures to see a match. Some countries
already use the technology in public places as part of their
security systems.
In China it's limited to police use. In recent years the
technology has helped Beijing police solve a number of criminal
cases involving child abduction and supermarket blackmail attempts.
"It has a very promising future for the public use," Su said in a
telephone interview yesterday.
"It has an advantage over fingerprint identification because the
country doesn't have a general public fingerprint database for the
general public," he said. He pointed out that as there is a
photograph on everyone's ID card it might simplify the
establishment of a facial database.
However, like systems in other countries, the technology has
proved open to mistakes. If a picture lacks sharp definition or a
person's facial features are influenced by a number of factors --
age, expression, lighting and or camera angles -- errors in
identification are possible. As the size of any database rises the
potential for mistakes also goes up.
The professor said his laboratory is working on these problems
although his system has tackled the 'angle issue' by taking
pictures with several cameras.
The privacy implication is a further concern. Presently there is
much debate over the use of face recognition and other surveillance
technologies.
"As long as you don't save the picture in the computer and just
scan individual faces quickly the privacy violation is not an
issue," Su said.
"And we could give assurances of that by not adding a picture
saving function to the technology," he said.
(China Daily February 20, 2006)