Face Recognition On Mobile Phones

gpvillamil writes: "This article describes a collaboration between Motorola, Visionics and Wirehound to build in an automatic mug shot recognition capability into mobile phones. Particularly interesting is how the phones will scan all faces in the field of view, and indicate matches by an instant short message."

Comments

Who will have access?

[CrazyDwarf]

I can see how this would be useful in limiting the access to your phone in case it gets lost or stolen, but I wonder who will have access to the faces it scans. With them being able to track the location of the phone, and then accessing the faces within its range that have been scanned, this looks like it has the POTENTIAL to be used to keep track of us. I don't know if the protection from having unauthorized use of my phone is worth that to me.... especially since I don't leave my phone where it could be easily stolen.

Re:Who will have access?

[CProgrammer98]

Th earticle says that it's for use by law enforcement agencies, not for private phones.
-

I can see it now........

[Deag]

Someone in the database walks down a crowded street, and the police are bombarded with text messages...

Biometrics

[govtcheez]

That's good - that means I can wear a hat or sunglasses and the police won't be able to catch me. The current state of biometrics is nowhere near good enough for this anywhere, let alone in cell phones.

Re:Biometrics

[motox]

Just shoot any person who points his cell phone at you...

Re:Biometrics

[hey!]

They'd better secure the transmission and storage of this data, because one excellent application for this would be to steal biometrics. The bad guys can then impersonate who they will be either hacking their cell phones to send your biometric, or by even simpler means.

As an example, the current generation system being deployed in airports can be fooled by a picture which is xeroxed and worn like a mask. I read an account of a demonstration of the technology at an airport where the company's rep put on such an improvised mask with Osama Bin-Laden's face on it -- triggering the alarm of course. My reaction to that was -- this is supposed to make me feel safe?

Re:Biometrics

[hey!]

The current generation of biometrics is relatively primitive. I'm assuming that the biometric would be too good to be fooled by a xerox mask or a poor video capture; perhaps it would include some kind of liveness test analagous to the finger print scanners that detect thumbs that have been cut off their owners. Perhaps it would track your lips and make sure you were speaking. The point is once we begin to trust these things, we're going to have protect them very carefully.

Right to privacy?!?

[itsnotme]

What the heck? This is an insane idea, its just giving away everybody's right to privacy, if you're in a cafe reading a book and there's a cellphone with this technology.. you just lost your right to privacy when the info is transmitted..

Remember what happened to that guy who they tested the superbowl mug shot system on? remember the hell he went through? what the hell do you think would happen to YOU if somebody got into the mugshot system and started fuddling with it?!

I think I'm going ot have to start wearing one of those cell disabling systems on my person to disable any cellphones in a radius that can take my mugshot or whatever other stupid things they put in cellphones!

Re:Right to privacy?!?

[tomstdenis]

What the heck? This is an insane idea, its just giving away everybody's right to privacy, if you're in a cafe reading a book and there's a cellphone with this technology.. you just lost your right to privacy when the info is transmitted..

"right to privacy....in an open cafe". That's funny!

Since when do you have an expectation of privacy sitting in a cafe?

You give privacy advocates a bad name.

Tom

Re:Right to privacy?!?

[AftanGustur]

right to privacy....in an open cafe". That's funny!

Why is that funny ? I guess it depends on how you define privacy.

I surely expect some level of privacy when I go to a cafe and have a coffe/beer/whatever. F.ex. I don't expect to find records of what I drank, on the Internet, the next day. And

Don't forget that 'privacy' is something that is defined by the people, and if you stop beliving you have this right, then you will stop having it.

Re:Right to privacy?!?

[GMontag]

What the heck? This is an insane idea, its just giving away everybody's right to privacy, if you're in a cafe reading a book and there's a cellphone with this technology.. you just lost your right to privacy when the info is transmitted..

In the USA your "right ot privacy" is actually a prohabition on government from snooping on you. There are exceptions too numerous to go into.

It is NOT a prohabition on citizens (non cops/agents of the government) from looking at others in places of public accomodation, like the hypothetical cafe you mention.

It is NOT a prohabition on other citizens from writing down your license plate number.

It is NOT a prohabition on other citizens from recording your picture and selling ot for profit (that is covered under other laws, not 4th Amendment).

It is NOT a prohabition on your neighbor looking out the open window of his home, into your open window and watching you do whatever you are doing there.

AND Certainly NOT a prohabition on a citizen from pointing a camera at you and looking up who you are based on your facial features.

If you had incorperated some element of government ABUSE of your privacy then you would have a valid point.

Re:Right to privacy?!?

[GMontag]

oops! My bad for not reading the article first! The article mentions government use.

Above points are valid, but not that pertinant to the post they are attached to.

The real point is you have no expectation of privacy in a public place, as others have pointed out.

However, there may be something here in the recent Supreme Court ruling about law enforcement using extraordinary technology in an effort to avoid obtaining a warrant that otherwise would be needed. Doubt it, but it is a possibility.

Re:Right to privacy?!?

[AftanGustur]

Why is that funny ? I guess it depends on how you define privacy.

Plain sight... nuff said.

So, ? Please tell us the definition of privacy that makes it funny to expect it in a cafe ?? Come on don't be shy ..

Re:Right to privacy?!?

[Stoutlimb]

"Umm, do we really *have* a right to privacy?"

Unless you're posting from China, or maybe soon the USA, then you probably live in a democracy. That means your rights will be whatever you, the people define them as. You really want privacy? You want to define privacy? Then get it encoded in your laws ASAP.

I think the real question isn't if we have the right or not... We can theoretically have any right we vote for, if we want it bad enough. The question that we must answer is exactly how should we define law-enforced privacy? Face-recognition software is bad in public places? They say it's public, so we have no right to privacy. Well, imagine, for a moment, instead of a camera in a public place, you saw a uniformed police officer standing on the sidewalk, or in the cafe, walking around tables, visibly and openly taking a photograph of everyone, or perhaps holding a camcorder.

We must ask how safe would we feel in this situation.

There would be far less criminals on the streets. But remember, never piss off the watchers....

Nothing here to see, move along.

Re:Right to privacy?!?

[swillden]

Since when do you have an expectation of privacy sitting in a cafe?

You have none. However, the poster does have a real point, just bad terminology.

Obviously you have no reasonable expectation of privacy in a public place: Anyone who happens to look (or point a camera) in your direction can see whatever it is that you're doing. You do have an expectation of some level of anonymity in many public places, however, and that brings with it a sort of privacy. Anyone can see what you're doing, but no one knows who you are.

But this expectation of anonymity is a very relative thing, and it's also a very *new* thing if you look at all of human history. Even today, residents of very small towns (say, less than a thousand people) have no expectation of anonymity in a public place. Anonymity in public is a phenomenon that arose first in large cities and more recently in very mobile populations.

Is public anonymity a good thing? Maybe. A necessary thing? Clearly not (I think privacy *is* a necessary thing).

One way to look at this is just as a continuation of the development of the "global village". That term is usually used to indicate the ease with which people throughout the world can communicate and trade, but one aspect of a real "village" is that no one in it is a complete stranger. Having lived in a very small town, I can tell you that everyone knowing everyone else has both advantages and disadvantages. In a small town, you know who you can trust and who you can't (and there are typically very few of the latter, which is why many people in small towns don't lock their doors). OTOH, it really sucks for the person who does one stupid thing one time and puts themselves into the "can't trust" category.

All of this presumes that the mobile face recognition technology (or any face recognitiion technology, for that matter) really works, which at present it does not. Current face recognition technology does quite a good job at comparing an image and a template and deciding "is this probably the same person?" Good in the sense that it's fairly difficult to pass yourself off as someone else. However, when you change the problem to matching an image against a database of templates and deciding "Which person, if any, is this one?" then current FR tech is horribly bad. The birthday paradox makes this a really hard problem to scale.

Given the fact that even humans, with their relatively small databases of a few thousand faces and highly developed recognition abilities, occasionally make mis-identifications, it's by no means certain that computers will ever be able to do this well on a large scale.

Re:Right to privacy?!?

[swillden]

It occurs to me that not everyone knows what the birthday paradox is:

For those who aren't familiar with it, the birthday paradox comes from the old party game question "Are there two people in this room with the same birthday?" The naive, commonsense answer would consider that there 366 possible birthdays in a year and expect that out of, say, a group of 30 people there's only a roughly 10% probability that two have the same birthday. That would be a good estimate of the probability of one person in the room having a particular birthday, but the problem is that in the room there are 870 (30*29) different "pairs" of birthdays, and the odds one pairing has the same birthday is quite high (I'm too lazy to calculate it, but it's around 70%).

In the case of face recognition and other identification technologies, it's like having 300 million people in the room and the problem is how to extract enough information from a face to create a relatively "unique" facial signature, because if there's even a small probability that signatures of two different faces will be the same, you will get *lots* of false pairings. Suppose that there is a 10e-6 probability that a random image will match a random template. In a nation of 300 million that means there will be, on average, 300 other people that, to the computer, look just like you. Worse, if you have a database of, say 1,000 bad guys, and you have an airport with 100,000 people passing through it daily, you'll get an average of 100 false positives *per day*.

And current FR tech is a long way from the 10e-6 false positive level. More like 10e-3 (meaing in the airport scenario that for every passenger passing through the terminal, the computer will find one possible match in the bad guy database. On average, of course).

Re:Right to privacy?!?

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Umm, do we really *have* a right to privacy? I don't believe it's in the Bill of Rights; it's just one of those things we all expect should be there.

The Ninth Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

In layman's terms: "Even though we didn't mention them, you still have them."

Re:Right to privacy?!?

[GMontag]

Perhaps you want to review your interpritation of the Constitution?

The US Constitution sets limits on government and enumerates powers of the government. It is not a list of rights and privleges for the people and the States.

Also note this other post about the Ammendment IX
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=30123&cid= 3235 177

We do not have to make a "right to privacy" law, we have already restricted the government from legally invading our privacy. Some of us think that the courts interperit the governmental power of privacy encroachment too liberally (yes, invasion of privacy is a liberal use of governmental power), but the point is that if privacy is not mentioned in the document then it's absance makes it a RIGHT not a privelage.

Re:Right to privacy?!?

[AftanGustur]

You are sadly mistaken.

You can be in "public" but still have some level of privacy.

Making reservations

[morie]

Calling a restaurant:
- Would you have a table at 19:00 ?
- Yes, but you'd better change into something with a tie, mister!

Arrested based on crappy facial recognition.

[Marty200]

I can just see it. Walking down the street and some cops cell phone mistakes me for a murderer and then next thing I know I'm in jail. The odds are that the software is going to make a mistake, and how do you convince the police that it's not you.
MG

Re:Arrested based on crappy facial recognition.

[SGDarkKnight]

fingerprints?

Sprint PCS guy

[mhesseltine]

I'm just waiting for the ads showing the PCS guy with one of these phones.

PCSG:John, tell me what happened.

John:Well, me and some buddies were out having a guys' night out. We had some drinks. Everything was going pretty good. Then this girl came up to us. She was really HOT!

PCSG:John, did you go home with her?

John:(Sheepishly) Yeah.

PCSG:What happened next?

John:I woke up in a bathtub full of ice, with a note that said I should call 911, and found out I was missing a kidney!

PCSG:John, what you really need is this new PCS phone with face recognition technology. You could have identified her and let one of your buddies "jump on the grenade"

Tampa system now this?

[itsnotme]

Here's the link to the slashdot story linking to the article about the Tampa superbowl face recognization system victim: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/08/08/202624 7&mode=thread" ... Now can you imagine what could happen if the cellphone recognization system became widespread? I wonder what the failure rate would be.. probably enough to claim a few victims

what about...

[SGDarkKnight]

if i want to grow a moustache, then shave it off, grow a beard a month later, then shave it off, then grow a goatee, and shave it off -- i guess the point im trying to make is, what happens when i want to change my apperance (ever so slight or major) from anything like facial hair, hair colour, pearcings, or anything else that can be done to your face... will it send an alert to athorities each time?

Re:what about...

[geekoid]

You can change you facial hair, and it will still work, but if you put on sunglasses, you may have a problem.
It uses the distance yyour eye are from each other, and some positioning information from your nose.

Re:what about...

[nege]

Dont worry. After a few isolated cases of murders eluding cell phone distributed policing technology (CPDPT) through facial hair and/or masks, congress (along with the phone companies, cell phone makers, police, and the RIAA and MPAA) will pass laws restricting the growth of facial hair and or sunglasses.

Re:what about...

[Gary Yngve]

Eigenfaces research from the early nineties showed how part of the face can even be missing and it will still pick up the principal components of the face.

Also, there exists research that synthesizes faces in a vector space. For example, making a face look older or more feminine. If the police suspected you would grow/lose facial hair, they could synthesize what you might look like and put those images into the computer.

That will help them...

[AVee]

...find Bin Laden. Twice, every hour. I mean, face recognition based on the power of a mobile phone, how accurate can that be?

I wonder, if this system is ever going to be used, how long it will take before the cops get sick of all the false alarms and drop it again.

Re:Bandwidth

[SGDarkKnight]

i guess it would just come down to a snapshot image to be transmitted, but I can see where your comming from. Unless the cell phone is going to hold the entire mug shot database, then it would need a continous link to where that database is to compare the snapshot with the mug shots. If if the phone is going to contain the mug shot database, then how is it going to be updated whenever new mug shots are added or taken away... ah well.. i guess i'll wait and see what they come up with.

how accurate can this stuff be?

[Xzzy]

Just to illustrate the problems with this stuff (beyond the well known superbowl incident), browse through this moderatley-related link: flo control

Seems like a pretty cool set up, right? Not quite.. start flipping through the timeline archives this guy has saved up (the "flo watch" button). As you click through, note how many times it seems like the cat would be permitted to enter, yet it comes up not letting him through the door. this day was a particularily bad day for the system. We, as humans, would have positively identified the cat properly. Computers, obviously, can't do that yet with any high accuracy.

Now granted "law enforcement" versions are going to be a wee bit more sophisticated, but if the cell phone version has even half the errors this cat detector does, are we ever gonna be able to put any faith into this technology?

Uses...

[Night0wl]

I'm not sure what use this would have in cell phone's kinda silly and pointless... But I do see how this would be great for cars, plains, and other vehicles..

"Hello Charlie, you are not authorized to drive this vehicle at these hours, please contact Bob or Samantha for assistance" Bob and Sam being Mom and Dad... perhaps even automatic radio transmition on detected entry of foreign (No not foreigners...) entry into a plains cock pit. Pilot has 5 minutes to contact ground control to cancel the jets from being scrambled....

I don't need my cell phone telling me hello every time it recognizes me, it's a tool. Let me use it like one.

Overkill...

[bje2]

this seems like a little bit of an overkill if it's primarily for security purposes...to me, a better (in terms of accurarcy) security implementation would be thumbprint identification...instead of having a mini camera scanning your mug (and those around you apparently), you should just be able to touch your thumb to the display screen to unlock the phone and use it...that seems a little more realistic (and less big brother-ish)...

of course then, we'll have a rash of people having their phones stolen and their thumbs cut off...

Re:Overkill...

[geekoid]

You can detect if the thumb is "alive" or not.

Visionics...

[Znork]

Is a BS artist company. The products do not work as advertised. The problem isnt in the products tho, it is in the advertising.

Facial recognition works fine for security checks, where your face gets compared against a small database and the recognition software can be trimmed to rejecting people. The physical settings like lighting can provide the best possible conditions for the software to provide an accurate match, and people can try again if they get rejected.

It also works fine in finding possible matches for a photo in a database. Now you can trim the software to a high acceptance rate, and get a bunch of likely matches which you can sort manually.

But it does not work if you need to compare a large database like wanted libraries against a massive number of people because you cannot have it both be certain to trigger on the people it's interested in but not the people it doesnt want. You get a minimum of false positives and negatives which will become most of the triggers when you have a large dataset. A device which will be wrong almost all the time isnt useful.

Of course, the actual article is rather fuzzy about the use. If it's used for scanning suspects at the site to speed up police work, it will actually be useful. If it's used for scanning everyone the police passes it wont be. And with Visionics being involved in various of the spectacular post 9/11 'facial recognition' projects, I wouldnt be surprised if they attempt to pull another bullshit job.

There goes my Moto stock...

[gosand]

Dammit! This was one of the reasons I left Motorola 3 years ago - they are just stupid. And this doesn't give me much hope that the stock I bought while I worked there, which is worth 1/3 what it was, is going to go anywhere but down the toilet.

But knowing what I know about them (I was there 5 years) they most likely didn't have anything to do with creating this software. They are sooooo behind the times there, a technological iceberg. Lots of potential, no action. I am sure they could afford to buy a stake in these small companies with the money they saved from laying off the massive amounts of dead wood they allowed to hang on the corporate teat for years.

no sour grapes, just REAL glad I left.

It's not about local MIPS, it's about connectivity

[mikewas]

The MIPS don't need to fit inside of a cellphone. the cellphone needs to be able to communicate with another computer that has the desired capability, and that computer can be anywhere, anysize. The limiting issue is bandwidth & connectivity.

voice recognition more feasible?

[peter303]

Since phones are primarily an audio device, wouldn't voice recignition be more feasible? I haven't heard much about voice metrics being used to verify identity, though sound interfaces are easier to install than video.

"Hey John! How'd the gall bladder operation go?"

[mikosullivan]

John: Who are you and how'd you know I had a gall bladder operation?

You: (glancing at PDA) Um, just sorta heard it.

sorry, I doubt the resolution is quite that good..

[supernova87a]

Hmm.. somehow, I doubt the resolution of cameras in cell phones will be anything near that capability.

Maybe good enough to tell if someone is wearing the smilie face tshirt, but not rapid facial recognition!

It's not about law enforcement

[Gray]

it's about being lousy with faces.

I'd pay big dollars for a device that would recognize people I'd met in the past and pull up their contact file. If it was standardized I'd happly attach my facal geometery to my vCard to make it easier.

If I want to go rob a bank, I'd be planning to wear a mask anyway.

Holy Bought&Sold Rightwing Lunatics, Batman!

[Fantastic Lad]

Dude! (itsnotme) I just had to put in my own two cents because of the overwhelming negative response to your post.

You are NOT on the wrong track. These posters are in every likelihood programmed zombie clones who believe that certain trucks are, 'Like a Rock', 'McDonald's Makes You Smile', and who, 'Just Do It'. --Either that, or they are Cointelpro agents assigned to keeping the bias and percieved popular opinion on Slashdot in the far, far right on sensitive issues. (--Naturally I'm just joking about the agents. Programmed zombie people are more than enough to get the job done.)

I don't give a hoot about how such morons interpret privacy law. Having my face scanned, databased and tracked by tax funded agencies while I walk through a public area is creepy and fascist. Period.

It's the "Spirit of the Law", you twits!

-Fantastic Lad

One question

[Christianfreak]

To all of the oh-my-gosh-I-can't-be-secret-anymore posts:

Unless you have committed a crime. Why would the fed/police/gov want to track you? I mean the police are overworked as it is, why would they want to track people that they have no reason to be suspicious of?

I'm refusing to be paranoid until I have a good reason to do so.!

Re:One question

[GungaDan]

"Why would the fed/police/gov want to track you?"

1. you're sleeping with Sheriff's wife
2. You espouse nonconformist political views
3. You're an adherent of an "unrecognized" religion
4. You "fit the profile"
5. They're bored, just exhibiting hacker/tracker spirit
6. Because they can!

Now ask, "why climb a mountain."

Yeah. You're probably right.

[Fantastic Lad]

They will sow a seeds of worry disguised as ridiculous sick humor, so that people will be more willing to accept these attacks on our private lives and public health.

Ubiquitous face recognition in public places is invasive and fascist. The number of nasty people we need to be 'protected' from is insigificant. But I'm sure somebody will blow up another building or two in order to close the sale of this bullshit.

-Fantastic Lad

REMINDER: Police are a bad thing.

[Stoutlimb]

Why?

Police are bad, but they're necessary in small doses, because criminals are bad too. Much like chemotherapy is bad for you, but so is cancer.

Imagine now, your "walking police databases" on every second street corner, watching everyone. Keeping tabs on everyone. Comparing notes. Making files and dossiers on whomever they chose. It worked for the USSR for 80 years. The old method works great for China. Police state works good for Cuba.

Now imagine if they had this tool. The word Freedom would be a fart in the wind.

So explain to me why this tool would be good to have in a free democratic country? Explain to me how this would *ONLY* be used to catch criminals and terrorists. I want to know.

Or the Verizon Guy

[Tokerat]

Verizon Guy: Can you see me now?...Good.

Verizon Guy: Can you see me now?...Good.

Verizon Guy: Can you see me now?...Gooooood.

Re:Extreme technology.

[GMontag]

Interesting and very valid stuff.

In refrence to what I was speaking of in the advanced tech realm is (not remembering exactly) what the Supreme Court ruled was that the police can not use thermal/IR imageing, laser tapping windows, etc. without obtaining a warrant, i.e., technology can not be used as a warrant circumvention device.

Perhaps someone with some refrences will respont and educate us on this.

Assumptions assumptions...

[Stoutlimb]

Newsflash: Other countries have constitutions too!

What makes you think I was interpreting your constitution in the first place? The internet does extend beyond your borders you know... (At least for now.) I only mentioned the USA in passing as an example... I'm not even in the USA, why should I be an expert on your constitution. My post is applicable to any free and democratic country that has a constitution in any form.

And what it meant, is that privacy is becoming a very important issue, because new technology is becoming capable of erasing privacy in very scary ways, perhaps to the point of threatening freedom and democracy. And I also meant, that people should vote and guarantee privacy in whatever way they can, while they still can. Whether it's enshrining a "right", or adequately restricting their gov't, that doesn't matter. We'll leave constitutional nit-picking to the lawyers.

It's good you understand your own constitution. Do you think it's enough to protect your country from the future threat this technology brings? I hope so.

Bork!

P.S. If the people of the USA really wanted the constitution to become a list of rights and privileges of the people, they could make it so. Not a bad idea, on the face of things...

Re:Extreme technology.

[Stoutlimb]

Yes, good point. A collection of small, legal actions, taken as a whole, can be horribly bad. And should be illegal.

(For the diehard slashdot people) Most, if not all of M$'s actions are perfectly legal. Yet the consensus is that they did something awfully bad and illegal.

Technology is giving people the opportunity to be good/evil in brand new, innovative ways. The law should be very ready for this... I hope it will be.

In other words,

[GungaDan]

Greta Van Susteren's fucked!

Because they're stupid.

[TheMCP]

Unless you have committed a crime. Why would the fed/police/gov want to track you? I mean the police are overworked as it is, why would they want to track people that they have no reason to be suspicious of?

Because they're stupid.

Explain to me why the FBI has files on so many innocent celebrities. Explain to me why they have files on so many civil rights workers. Explain to me why they have files on so many random people.

I recall the case of a librarian who found out about the Freedom of Information Act. As a lark she wrote to the local FBI office and requested a copy of her file. They wrote back and refused to provide it because she was the subject of an active investigation, but said her file was 12 pages long. HUH? She was an *assistant* *librarian*. Her life was about as interesting as that sounds.

My uncle works in the defense industry. I stayed with him for a couple of months during the summer when I was 16. My aunt and I used to get followed around shopping malls by ridiculously obvious guys in trenchcoats. We thought it was funny and would just walk into Victoria's Secret and watch them get embarassed and leave, but nevertheless it was a waste of resources: we didn't (and don't) have any access to any sensitive materials, and we were doing very innocent shopping. Someday I will write to the FBI and see if it was indeed them, just out of curiosity.

I'll trust the feds/police/government to responsibly choose who to investigate/track when hell freezes over.