Let’s first discuss what is Facial Recognition?
Have you ever been to a bank to open an account? Have you ever been to a government office to make your identification card? Or if you have ever been to an airport, chances are you already experienced facial recognition.
Facial Recognition is a technology to capture, save and identify a human face. The technology uses the biometric authetification system and learns facial features from photography or video to understand and identify an individual. The system stored the information in the database and when presented with a face, it matches the shown face with the one stored in the database. The algorithm matches two data and concludes if it is similar or not.
This technology is not just being used in a bank, government, and airport, its uses are expanding and many institutes are adapting it. We are all familiar with smartphones using this technology to unlock phones. Many organizations use face verifying technology to keep their employee’s data stored and safe in the company’s database.
Let’s discuss how does facial recognition software stores the information.
If you have ever set face lock in your smartphones, you are already familiar with the process of how facial recognition technology gathers data. The software asks you to look straight into the camera. This is where the software looks for a common facial features like eyes, nose and also uses the geometric to measure the facial feature of your face. The human face has 80 nodal points which are used by facial recognition in determining and storing facial data. Some of the common features are following
- Distance between the eyes
- Width of the nose
- Depth of eye socket
- The shape of cheekbones
- Length of Jawline
Some software also gathers data in 3D in which the software asks you to move your face, look left-right, up-down, and rotate your face to 180 angles. This is where the software gathers as much information about your facial feature as possible. Much facial software only gathers pictures in 2D which isn’t that much accurate as 3D but most photos are saved in 2D in a public database.
How Do Facial Recognition works?
The software converts the imaging data into a numerical form which is used to compare the image. The software will detect and recognize the human face in a crowd or alone.
Modern face recognition software uses artificial intelligence. This machine learning model is trained by a machine learning algorithm which helps it learn the data and distinguish the facial features. The artificial intelligence algorithm processes the face and gets a unique signature of the face. This signature helps them to compare and identify different images. When matching your face, the algorithm goes through the data of images stored in the database. If your face image is stored in the data store it will identify your face.
Issues Arise by Facial Recognition
Facial recognition might be a helpful technology but it does not come without issues and concerns. No matter how much it is helpful there are always some technology issues.
The biggest issue that the public feels with facial recognition is a privacy issue. And they are not wrong. In past, China used this technology to track and spy on its people. People have shared that this technology is used by their government to spy on people.
Hacking and cyber issues have made it worse. Many of the government data get hacked and leaked which includes personal information about people. This information contains everything including their address, phone number, faces, etc. It is not just the government data but private companies have also been a victim of hacking and their customer data get leaked.
This technology has also spread a fear among the citizens that it can be used for wrong purposes. It is not just the private institute but many people do not even trust their government. They feel that this technology can be miss used and land them into a problem.
The technology may have some issues but it is helping in making the digital world more secure. It is expanding its benefit and many institutes are adapting it. One does not forget that this technology is still innovating and improving. The laws are also implementing to make this technology safer for people. Also there are many firms providing face verification solution to protect businesses from any kind of fraud.