Smart Cameras Blog

[From In Hard Focus: Manchester Airport Downgrades Matching Threshold on Facial Scanners]

Here is the money quote from the Telegraph article that was posted:

Airport face scanners designed to verify travellers’ identity against their passport photographs are working at such a low level that they would be unable to tell the difference between Osama bin Laden and the actress Winona Ryder, it has been claimed.

Here is more detail:

In a leaked memo, an official says the machines have been recalibrated to an “unacceptable” level meaning travellers whose faces are shown to have only a 30 per cent likeness to their passport photographs can pass through.

The machines, undergoing trials at Manchester airport, have apparently been questioning so many passengers’ identities that they were creating huge queues. The technology was designed to help immigration officials spot people traveling under false passports, particularly terrorists, but the multi-million pound scheme now appears to be in jeopardy.

Rob Jenkins, an expert in facial recognition at Glasgow University’s psychology department, said lowering the match level to 30 per cent would make the system almost worthless. Using facial recognition software from Sydney airport in Australia set at 30 per cent, he found the machines could not tell the difference between Osama bin Laden and the actors Kevin Spacey or even the actress Winona Ryder while Gordon Brown was indistinguishable from Mel Gibson.

Stephen Russell adds a comment:

I’ll be interested to see if an official response to this “leaked memo” is released that explains the drastic drop in standards and their reason for the large number of false-positives. It could be the result of their technology choice, or just the result of poor, old, and varied photos common to passports. Likely both.

rshah Applications, Facial Recognition