The ‘London Riot Facial Recognition’ is a group of civilians who aim to help authorities identify individuals who participated in the UK riot over the weekend.  They’re using a technology that’s rather controversial at the moment, leveraging facial recognition APIs by matching them on photos in social networks.  This is great news for some, as this could help fast-track the investigations behind the London riots.  The only problem is, the group is not sanctioned by the authorities.  They are doing it vigilante-style.  This caused alarm for the public as the same technology can be used maliciously.

Facial recognition software is hot in the market right now, but where did it all really start?  Well, you could blame it all on those Sci-Fi flicks in the late 80s where film producers had this great idea to incorporate them, but that’s not where it started.

Facial recognition technology goes way back to 1964 when Bledsoe, along with Helen Chan and Charles Bisson, worked on using the computer to recognize human faces.  But they lacked funding, so the project didn’t really make it in the market.  Nevertheless, the project lived on at the Stanford Research Institute, primarily run by Peter Hart.  More developments came about around the system, evolving well into the 90s.  But the biggest breakthrough in facial recognition happened in 2006, with the performance of the latest face recognition algorithms, evaluated in the Face Recognition Grand Challenge (FRGC). High-resolution face images, 3-D face scans, and iris images were used in the tests.

Fast-track to the present, and facial recognition is now being used by social networks to tag people in photos.  Traction has been gaining around sites like Face.com, Phototagger and Photo Finder, but things began to get controversial once facial recognition was incorporated into the mainstream: Facebook’s latest photo tagging capabilities.

Beyond social networks, facial recognition is now also being utilized in games or apps to give realistic facial expressions to avatars, much like what they do in Hollywood with CGI in movies like Planet of the Apes.  Others like Google have also dipped a toe into the facial recognition pool with their PittPatt acquisition, though it hasn’t been clear as to whether they will incorporate them into Google+ or in their Android platform, or both.  Others still have pushed the biometric scan beyond facial recognition as iris scans alongside facial recognition technology are now being incorporated in some smartphones for the use of authorities to help nab criminals.

Though at first this seemed a great idea, to use advancements in technology in the quest to end crime, issues have been raised that the same technology poses a great threat to the security and privacy of the public.  This type of technology can be used without anyone’s knowledge, with is a primary concern with the auto-tagging feature that Facebook recently added.  German officials are now stating that the facial recognition found in Facebook violates European and German data protection laws, and have threatened to file legal action against Facebook if nothing will be done with the issue they raised.  A recent study also shows that you can identify people by cross-referencing a recent photo taken of someone with an existing database.  So though people tend to use aliases on various sites, anyone can still know who you really are because of your face, unless you undergo drastic reconstructive surgery to alter your phenotype.

Aside from that, if smartphones and tablets get equipped with these biometric scans, malicious people can use them to do more harm than good.  The point of the biometric scan is to create a database for people so that identification can be done in an instant, which is great if you’re part of the CSI team, but if you’re not, you can use this data to stalk anyone (great for fans, not so great for actors!).

But not all innovations regarding biometric scanning is bad.  One helpful use is for biometric wallets from TungstenW and Dunhill.  It’s virtually indestructible and can only be opened with the touch of your own finger.  Great for storing money, credit/debit cards, pin codes etc.  It’s connected to your smartphone via Bluetooth so if you walk a few feet away from it, the wallet triggers an alarm which in turn alerts you. Nifty, eh? Unfortunately, if you left both your wallet and your smartphone, then its goodbye to everything.  Though they say it’s virtually indestructible, I’m sure people will find ways to open it one way or another.