How Facial Recognition Systems Work?
In the distant past a person was known within a community simply by being recognized by friends, family and business acquaintances. When this same person venture to another community or to a place where others didn’t know him, he may have to provide some letter of recommendation from a well-known person or provide some other form of identification. In recent years the driver’s license or other form of photo identification served to let other people know this man or woman was who they said they were.
But new technology has taken personal identification to a completely different level. People are known by a number of methods, including fingerprints. Now, people can be identified by specific physical details scanned and interpreted by facial-recognition software and analyzed by computer. This isn’t anything like having surveillance cameras capture your image and then having that video evidence studied by human experts.
Early facial-recognition programs were meant to positively identify individuals by distinguishing their facial structure and other details from those of other person. The first systems tried were only successful a bit more than half the time. But computer-software developers have gradually eliminated some of the problems associated with early systems. 
What happens when these systems begin taking in information from a single face? The program takes measurements and records details about size and position of the nose, eyes, bone structure and so on. With enough detail the software program can compare tiny elements of the person’s face with those of others, providing more accurate identification than was possible before. The programs use either “geometric” methods that make distinctions between facial features or “photometric” methods that take the image of a person’s face and assign numerical values that can be compared.
An advancement in technology that makes facial recognition more accurate is the ability to construct three-dimensional images of objects. It’s much easier to compare details when the entire shape of the head supplies information rather than the two-dimensional surface of the face. This allows depth to be used as well, not only for the entire head but for the nose, the hollows of the cheeks, the depth of the eyes in the sockets and so on.
Even more detail is possible with new programs that allow scientists, law-enforcement officers and others to analyze the texture of a person’s skin. Small details are recorded and analyzed after being converted into mathematical values. Some experts feel that this new technology improves facial recognition significantly. With the vast improvement in technology in the last few years, government authorities have been able to apprehend many individuals who were on wanted lists. Some of these arrests occurred when the individuals entered sporting events or government buildings where facial recognition was employed. Because the details gathered are so exact, this type of identification has even been used to identify voters entering a polling place on Election Day. Some have suggested that this identification method could be used in place of credit cards, ATM cards and other electronic identification now being used.
Category: Softwares, Technology