Face Recognition Technology doesn't work yet

From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Mon Apr 21 2003 - 05:49:55 MDT

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    Many people have mentioned face-recognition technology on this list. As a
    security professional, I like to warn people that this stuff doesn't work
    yet. But many people don't believe me, because the vendors and salespeople
    claim it works.

    Here are the results of the Face Recognition Vendor Test 2002. The best
    indoor rate was 90% recognition with a 1% error rate. This means screening
    100,000 people for a criminal would yield 1000 false positives whether the
    sought party was in the group or not. The best outdoor rate was 50%
    recognition with a 1% error rate. This means that in addition to the 1000
    false positives, it is a coin toss whether the sought party would be
    recognized if present.

    Although this technology will undoubtedly work and be useful one day, it is
    not yet ready for prime time. No security systems should be based on this.

    <http://www.frvt.org/FRVT2002/documents.htm>

    --
    Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, IAM, GSEC
    <www.HarveyNewstrom.com>
    


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