Face-recognition systems looking better

IHT - NYTimes: "Face-recognition technology, often touted as a promising tool in the fight against terrorism, earned a bad reputation after it failed miserably in some well-publicized tests of its ability to pick faces out of crowds. Yet, on simpler challenges, the technology's performance is improving and business has been growing.

Major casinos now use the technology to spot card counters at blackjack tables. The United States is planning to require the technology in its next generation of passports. Several U.S states are using face-recognition systems to check for individuals who have obtained multiple driver's licenses by lying about their identity. Pinellas County, Florida, recently began deploying the system in police cars so officers can immediately check the people they stop against a database of mug shots.

Making the technology work, however, has required nearly perfect lighting and cooperative subjects, conditions that are not present when trying to pinpoint suspected terrorists and criminals in a crowd. Viisage, based in Billerica, Massachusetts, has seen its stock price double this year, and its major U.S. rival, Identix, based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, has risen sharply, too. Viisage closed Friday at $9.81 a share, down 26 cents, or 2.6 percent, on the Nasdaq.

The technical advances are having an impact. Viisage, for example, struggled to achieve a 50 percent recognition rate in tests last year at Logan International Airport in Boston. But Mohamed Lazzouni, the company's chief technology officer, says that Viisage's results would be better than 90 percent if it repeated the trial with its latest technology, including elements brought in when it acquired ZN Vision Technologies of Germany in January."