Face recognition technology is ramped up

PERTH: A dot-sized part of a face may soon be all that is needed to identify a person, according to an Australian face recognition expert.

Ajmal Mian from the University of Western Australia in Perth is investigating how to use satellite technology to identify facial features that lie under the skin - a technology that could one day be used to identify people who have used cosmetic surgery to alter their face.

"Multi-spectral imaging can be used to measure light reflected off a face at hundreds of discrete wavelengths in the visible spectrum and beyond," he said. "Recognition based on sets of facial images from surveillance cameras, YouTube videos, Google Images or personal photo albums is more accurate because they contain more information."

Better than fingerprinting

Mian said that face recognition technology was better than fingerprinting because it didn't require special equipment or an expert to verify the results. Plus any part of a face can be used, and many images of a person's face - including different expressions and poses - could be merged to make a composite image that was more meaningful to the machine.

"Humans can recognise a person regardless of whether they're laughing, frowning, crying or sleeping. Machines may soon be able to do the same," he said. "Humans are very good at finding a familiar face in a crowd but less able to identify someone they may have seen only once. This is where machines outperform people because they can memorise images and never tire of matching them to faces in a crowd."

Mian added that face recognition technology is being used increasingly for computer log-ons, identity checks and surveillance. He said it can be used in any kind of machine such as mobile phones, computers and robots. "It's the most user-friendly way to authenticate someone and is now so sophisticated that machines can identify a face no matter what the expression."

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