Facial Recognition Fails in Boston, Too

bryan writes "Only a few weeks after cameras were found to be ineffective in catching criminals in Tampa, FL, a test of a facial-recognition system in Boston's Logan airport also came up disappointing. The cameras which were given photos of employees to detect, were only successful in 153 out of 249 random tests over the past year (about 61%). The article did not say how many false positives the tests generated. The companies involved were Indentix and Visage."

Comments

wetware comparison

[Empiric]

I heard that a very substantial amount of our brain's capacity is devoted to differentiating faces, and it's conjectured that this processing overkill is responsible for such things as people seeing a "face" in the objectively very non-face-like features of the moon.

Give the parallel processing capability people have to do this trick, it's probably not too surprising that computer tech hasn't gotten there yet.

Anyone know more about face-recognition processing in the human brain? I find this topic quite interesting...

Re:wetware comparison

[Hettch]

I've only had a breeze over the subject in one of my courses, but it astonished me. Our professor told is a story of a girl who head a head injury and actually lost the part or her brain that did the facial recognition processing. The description she gave was that of people looking normal from the neck down, but their faces were blurred almost like what they do to censor people in TV.

The facial recognition part of the brain is also very responsible for driving emotions. You show a picture of Hitler to someone, and they automatically become angry. You show a pretty girl, and they become more happy. A fascinating subject, its no wonder the cameras failed.

Re:wetware comparison

[wirelessbuzzers]

Caveat: following is IIRC; this is from a basic developmental psych class that I took for breadth requirements. I got a lousy grade in the class mostly for failing to remember specific details, so some of this may be just plain wrong. Go to Scirus or something and search for this stuff before using it in your doctoral thesis.

Human face recognition is also built-in. Psych experiments on newborns (straight out of the maternity ward), as well as older infants, indicate that they can detect faces early on. This is not the case with all visual abilities that people have! There are many types of spacial recognition and object-parsing tasks that infants, and even toddlers, simply can't do.

Newborns pay more attention to shapes that look like a face > over those that are schematically similar > over those those with eyes, noses etc but in different arrangements > over ovals with random junk > over blank ovals...

Also at an early age (don't remember when; I don't think they tested it on newborns, but I wouldn't be surprised if they can do this too), babies can tell familiar faces from unfamiliar ones, and show an inverted habituation effect; that is, they prefer to look at familiar faces than unfamiliar ones (unlike most shapes, where they get bored with the familiar ones).

Also at an early age (again, I don't remember how early, but less than a year), infants map others' faces onto their own and imitate. That is, if you stand in front of them for a few minutes with your tongue sticking out, they often stick theirs out too. If you have one eye open and one closed, they'll copy that too (I don't remember which eye tho).

From an early age, babies can also follow gazes to tell what someone is looking at; this is important in the development of language as well as vision, because babies use it to figure out what an adult is talking about. It is, IIRC, used more than what the adult is *pointing* at.

In addition to recognizing faces, babies can recognise other body parts, and treat an action differently based on whether it is done by a hand or a stick (when they don't see the hand holding the stick). If it is done by a hand or other object perceived to be animate, it is treated as goal-oriented and categorized partly by the perceived goal; if done by an "inanimate" object, the baby does not look for a goal. This is studied through habituation experiments; different actions with the same goal were seen as more similar (and hence less interesting) than those with the same basic appearance, if and only if they were performed by an animate-looking object such as a hand.

Re:wetware comparison

[NanoGator]

"Satan's Face in the WTC smoke? Wow, I never heard of that one... that's pretty funny. :)"

You may not find it so amusing if you saw the video. The moment of the collision, a cloud of smoke formed which momentarily looked like the face of a rather amused devil.

There are those that believe we're due for armageddon, and given that 2001 was the new millineum and that an attack like this could have sparked World War III, it was rather spooky.

Re:wetware comparison

[bytesmythe]

Heh... I grew up in the South hearing all other ethnic groups look alike. Later I heard that people from other ethnic groups had just as hard a time telling white people apart, but it didn't make sense to me at the time. I mean, white people obviously had more varied facial features, skin tones, and hair colors, right?

It turns out that members of ethnic groups with less variety in those areas have other features used for telling each other apart, like overall face or head shape, height of foreheard, and other things that would likely not even be noticeable to caucasians. When you grow up and learn to distinguish faces by certain characteristics, your brain eventually doesn't bother with anything else. I would think a person raised in a really ethnically diverse area would be the most well-equipped to tell apart a wide variety of different types of faces.

Here is a somewhat relevant article on the subject. It's a little more psychological than neuroscientific, but it shows some of the ideas currently being pursued.

Re:wetware comparison

[BurKaZoiD]

Human face recognition is also built-in.

How does this apply to people who have been blind since birth and suddenly (through some miracle surgery) have their sight restored? They wouldn't know a face from a goatse.cx link, since their entire environment has been interpreted via sensory input collected from senses other than sight. Be an interesting study though. Quick! Someone write a doctoral thesis on this! Stat!

Of course it doesn't work.

[grub]

They aren't at the stage yet where machines can recognize people based on gait and mannerism. Facial recognition is a best guess and still requires a human to be sure of the fact just like fingerprint systems.

It's coming along...slowly...

[Manic Ken]

As it happens, a friend of mine is working for a company that are in this field....they successfully implemented eye tracking, (dont tell me, there are lots of companies doing this, but not as well as these guys..). We discussed it the other day, and he told me that the face-recognitions algoritms are coming along..there is some huge stastically problems involved in this, the equipment is not the problem (they are using ordinary webcams) and some special light(ir-freq)...pretty cool stuff. Now, the ethical problems with this are MUCH more difficult.

- While I myself say there is naught, nor ought there be,
Nothing so exalted on the face of God's grey earth
As that Prince of Foods . . . The Muffin!- The Muffin Man

I think the concept is being distorted

[TekReggard]

I think the concept of facial recognition is being distorted from a tool to help assist in the confirmation of possible criminals and terrorists to a single device that does all the work. The idea that it can still bring in a 61% accuracy rate is pretty good if you compare it to previous technologies. When you combine that with on the ground security and other systems, it only makes it easier for the Airport security, or other government or commerce locations to keep a tight hold on who comes in and out of their systems. Think of it this way, They have facial recognition working at entrances, and a few places along the way to security checkpoints. It picks up 3 positives out of 5000 people for terrorists or criminals (This is just a guess). They send that information to security at checkpoints with a picture from the camera, and whatever might be in a database. The security will be able to check to see if it was accurate at the checkpoint, and make a decision based on that for whether or not to check this person more throughly, stop them, arrest them, etc... whatever the case may be. If they can tell from the photograph that it was probably a false positive, they can just avoid it all together, or pick them for a random security check. No one said if it comes up with a false positive that person will be automatically picked up and thrown in jail. It sounds like a reasonable tool to help identify people they need to check more closely, nothing more.

Typical results when a product is misused

[mnmlst]

Oddly, I read the article (unusual for a Slashdotter) here and it seems to imply that these companies were marketing their products for the limited use of trying to catch people with forged identity documents. Rather than just having a Customs officer compare the photograph to the face next to that photograph, the software could chime in with "Yeah, that's her alright." It looks like the security people at Logan Airport deployed these products in bulk. I wonder whose bright idea it was to try and use these at randumb? Perhaps a zealous salesperson or an overenthusiastic security manager? I also noticed the company spokesperson sounded a bit "hedged" like the company is trying to state that "Gosh, this product was never meant to be USED the way this customer is using it." The part left unsaid by the spokesperson was, "We told them this wouldn't work..." On a side note, let's not even consider how abysmal this software must perform when terrorists are deliberately disguising their faces.

"Fails"?

[bouis]

Sounds impressive, actually. If there are 4-5 hijackers, and each has a 61% chance of being noticed, then the odds are good that at least one will be and the plot will be foiled.

Also, what's the worry about false positives? If and when they happen, it's a simple matter to clear up a person's real identity. It's not like they shoot first and ask questions later.

Biometric sagaLong string of failures

[Dark Coder]

Oh dear...

First, a poster of someone else's face (facial recognition evasion).

Second, the goey fingerprint duplicator,

now this walk-by signature hacker on a PDA?

What would be next?

Hijacking IRIS pattern (simply stareing at the bathroom mirror)?

Stolen DNA pattern?

There is no solid defense against unrevokable but stolen biometric parameters.

Re:Don't let the results stop you!

[RevMike]

So it doesn't work, won't help, and might even end up hurting more that a few people, but it's going to enhance passport security?

The article pointed out that the software was very effective at validating things like passport photos. One would imagine that a traveller would step up to the desk at customs/immigration and had over his passport. The immigration agent would insert the passport into a scanner. A camera would shoot a similar shot of the person standing at the counter. The software would then compare the two images and determine with a fairly high degree of reliability that the person at the counter is or is not the person in the passport photo. This determination could occur regardless of whether the person had gained or lost weight, lost hair, dyed hair, grew facial hair or shaved, or simply aged.

People make mistakes in this situation all the time. there is nothing wrong with having a computer try it.

Re:Face recognition

[jedidiah]

The current state of the art in facial recognition doesn't allow for automated operation. Anyone familiar with the technology realizes this. Articles such as this are no great revelation to anyone with a clue.

The current tech certainly is imperfect. However, it does offer the potential to allow increased scrutiny of a subset of passengers. This alone has value. We just have to decide how many false positives we can manage.

Just contemplate if 5 of the 10 hijackers at Logan had been detected. Every little bit can help.

Twins?

[jhughes]

I haven't followed facial recognition too much but...wouldn't twins have an issue with this?
I'm an identical twin, I've had my lights punched out by someone who thought I was him (Thanks bro..grumble)...

Anyone able to tell me how this would differentiate between siblings that look very very much alike?

Face-Recognition System & Visa Application to

[reporter]

The tests conducted thus far on the face-recognition system shows that it cannot identify a particular face within a crowd of faces. However, this failure does not mean that the system has no useful application.

The system can be used to recognize a particular face when it is standing alone. Consider, for example, a photo of a face sent along with an visa application to the American embassy. Please read "World: Asia-Pacific China backs embassy protests". In 1999, Serbians committed gross human-rights violations against the Kosovars in Kosovo; the Chinese fully supported the Serbians in their campaign of terror. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) under American command attempted to stop the slaughter by knocking out Serbian military units. NATO deliberately attempted to avoid hitting civilian targets in Serbia, but some bombs accidentally hit the Chinese embassy.

Shortly thereafter, the Chinese in both China and outside China erupted into ugly, violent protests. The Chinese throw stones and other projectiles at the American embassy in China. The Chinese also attacked some Americans. " The residence of the US Consul General in the south-western city of Chengdu was stormed and partially burned ."

How could the Americans in China have responded to this nonsensical violence? The Americans should have done the following.

1. Pull out cameras and take pictures of all the protestors.
2. Scan the photos into a computer and transmit them to Washington.
3. Henceforth, when a Chinese submits an application for a visa to travel to the USA, use the face-recognition system to determine whether the photo of the applicant matches any of the protestors. If there is a match, then the application will not be approved.
4. At the American embassy, grab a megaphone and loudly announce, "Attention protesters. We are using a face-recognition system. Any protestor applying for a visa to the USA will be denied entry into the USA. We are taking pictures right now. "

After about 10 clicks of the shutter of the camera, all the protestors would have disappeared. Henceforce, we should use this face-recognition system in conjunction with photographic equipment at all embassies and consulates run by Western nations within China (which includes Taiwan and Hong Kong).

... from the desk of the reporter

Re:Don't let the results stop you!

[BrynM]

There's a few problems with the "scan a passport and compare" method. First, both forms of identification would be supplied by the person being screened (their face and their ID/Passport), which leaves wiggle room for tampering.

Second, some TSA lackey is going to get in the habit of passing IDs and passports under a scanner and looking for a result. They will think even less about comparing the face with the image for themselves. They will simply trust the computer. There's a great TSA article at Wired (Confessions of a Baggage Screener - Wired 11.09) that lays a lot of their habits bare.

Lastly, as someone already mentioned, the 9/11 attackers used their real names and real passports. Just because we are looking for terrorists, it doesn't mean we actually know who they are or what they look like.

I don't think that face recognition will help much but some department's budget and some politician's "knee-jerk" contribution efforts. Ok, this may prevent Osama from flying, but I don't think he'd assign himself to a suicide mission. It will always be some "volunteer" that we have very little record of.

Re:Face-Recognition System & Visa Application

[EpsCylonB]

Cunningly facist, I like it.

A Contrarian Take On This

[josephgrossberg]

Yeah, it was a bad idea to begin with, but let's give Boston and Tampa (Bay?) some credit.

The government saw once of its "law enforcement" / "war on terrorism" programs was ineffective and (gasp!) dropped it.

Isn't this exactly what we're *not* supposed to see from this bloated, non-responsive, heavy-handed bureaucracy/police-state that the libertarians/progressives bash all the time?

They had a trial run of a new, controversial idea and it didn't work. Isn't that exactly the sort of innovation and creativity people claim "big government" sorely lacks?

Canadian no smile rule just the start

[hey]

Recently there was a story in the press about a new rule for Canadian passorts: no smiles. Now we know why...to normalize the faces for facial recognition.