Imaging and biometrics solutions developer Tygart Technology has announced a new mobile facial recognition system that could have major government applications. The MXMOBILE FaceID System is designed to enable government agents to use their smartphone cameras for in-the-field identification of suspects and persons of interest.
The service is being marketed primarily at government law enforcement agencies. It essentially gives clients access to the company’s MXMOBILE cloud platform, which is able to efficiently process large amounts of image data, enabling the cloud-based biometric identification of individuals in images uploaded from smartphones. In other words, instead of having to rely on specialized hardware to identify individuals’ faces in the field, government agencies can use their own mobile devices to capture data and transmit it to MXMOBILE for biometric identification; Tygart says that the service almost instantly offers a list of possible matches. The service could even enable citizens to help in the identification process by letting them upload their own images of suspicious individuals.
It’s an ingenious idea, given that facial recognition is already becoming prominent on smartphones for authentication purposes. And it could prove to be an important resource for law enforcement and security authorities. Police are already starting to use specialized biometric identification devices in field operations, and by essentially enabling the same functionality via everyday mobile devices, many more could take advantage. Of course, it may also lead to controversy, if deployed too liberally; some government agencies are already running into trouble over their use of facial recognition with CCTV systems.
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August 6, 2015 – by Alex Perala
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