This page will go into great detail on the facial recognition process and how you can leverage it to generate leads for your agency. For background, here are some important terms for you to know:
- Facial Recognition: An application that uses biometric algorithms to detect multiple landmarks and measurements of a face that may be compared to a gallery of known images to find potential matches.
- Facial Identification: The manual process (the human aspect) of examining potential matches from facial recognition, looking for similarities or differences.
- Face Print: A digitally recorded representation of a person’s face that can be used for identification of the person based on unique characteristics. Also known as a Face Template.
- Algorithm: A process or set of rules to be followed in calculations, or other operations, which is set by a computer. In facial recognition the algorithms are rules on how to read a face.
- Gallery: Any database of known images. Gallery images can come from a number of sources, including mugshots, watchlists or hotlists.
- Probe Image: Any unknown image captured for facial recognition. Probe images can be taken by an officer in the field using a camera or mobile phone or from other sources such as security and CCTV cameras.
- Gallery Image: An image from an existing facial recognition database. Once a probe image is run through the facial recognition system, it is manually compared to gallery images to identify potential matches.
- Controlled (Constrained) Images: Images with good lighting, frontal face positioning, high resolution, and acceptable distance from camera (examples: taken by a field officer, kiosk station, identification card photos). Controlled images are optimal for facial recognition matching.
- Uncontrolled (Unconstrained) Images: Images with poor lighting, poor poses (looking down or up, and certain profile captures), low resolution, heavily pixelated, overexposed, underexposed, subject is too far away, fisheye camera captures, distorted or skewed images, pictures or recordings of a screen, photocopies with excessive noise, or occlusion (blocking any part of the face).