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The Face Scan Arrives

nytimes.com

41–50 of 51 posts

Re: The Face Scan Arrives

#41

Does anyone know how this can be technically achieved? Large scale face recognition with 1 photo per person in the training set?

I do it with only a single ocular image (eye, eyebrow, and surrounding skin texture) rather than the full face. Using 1:1 matching environments are common for NIST challenges.

Do you have any papers on your work? Would be great if you add a link to them.

Re: The Face Scan Arrives

#42
post #6

If VR headsets like Oculus Rift take off, this problem can be mitigated. People will walk around with headsets to cover their entire face, defeating the cameras. Surveillance is going to happen, if you ban government surveillance, the public will get this tech and drones and be doing it anyway. So the robust way to fight it is to plan your life knowing that you can always be monitored and someone will always know whe…

Perhaps, but the cameras on the VR headsets will provide even more data for the government for those who don't have an anonymous face; especially if the data is sent to a central server for processing (ala Google Glass).

Plus, unless you build the hardware entirely yourself, the headset won't save you from other tracking technologies. Presumably the headset will have a wireless chip whose MAC can be tracked, or, worse, it'll have an RFID chip specially-built for government tracking.

Re: The Face Scan Arrives

#43
post #18

Does anyone know how this can be technically achieved? Large scale face recognition with 1 photo per person in the training set?

Why does it need to be a single photo? Mandate that when you get your passport/driving license theres a face scan. Wouldn't be amazing tech and could be introduced fairly easily.

I didn't realize that. Got my passport long ago, and for the driving license I'm sure they just took a picture. There was no scan (atleast nothing like the laser scan described by bsenftner above).

Re: The Face Scan Arrives

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it exists, and I use it every day. In fact, I have a partnership with the DOD/NSA subcontractors who created it, and I have applied the technology to the automated creation of 3D Avatars given a single photo of a person's face. My version of the tech is available at www.3D-Avatar-Store.com. The system works as follows: a person's head is laser scanned, at the same time dozens of single photos are taken of that p…

What's the state of the art in terms of extending such systems to handle faces that are partially obscured (e.g. wearing glasses)? References to further resources in the area accepted and appreciated! I'm going to start work on a face recognition system soon and I'm keen to learn more about their current limitations.

It's just an issue of training. I'd expect a similar setup as I describe could be used to associate a series of faces with and without different things attached to their face, and a neural net could be trained to generate, for example, a no eye glasses wearing image from one with eye glasses. We already do that with facial expressions. I think the issues to be improved upon are extending the recognition beyond the face - include ear characteristics to extend recognition beyond +/- 30 degrees, and although my lab tells me analyzing gait is a dead end, I feel there might be something there that can help. Also lighting neutralization is an area that needs some help, which includes illumination balancing without removing important details, shadow removal, and colored illumination white balancing.

Re: The Face Scan Arrives

#45
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for the part where you're a person wearing a highly unusual outfit..

Which the machine won't recognise as a person (and will discard). It would take a human to track you but that's old school. Of course, that's only until gait recognition takes over from face recognition.

Exactly. It's easy to get a computer to track everyone automatically, but really expensive to hire people to track everyone simultaneously.

You'll stand out more to a human observer, but to a computer you'll be invisible.

Or you could just have really dark skin. That usually works just as well. (Example: http://www.gamespot.com/news/kinect-has-problems-recognizing...)

Re: The Face Scan Arrives

#46

Does anyone know how this can be technically achieved? Large scale face recognition with 1 photo per person in the training set?

Yes, it exists, and I use it every day. In fact, I have a partnership with the DOD/NSA subcontractors who created it, and I have applied the technology to the automated creation of 3D Avatars given a single photo of a person's face. My version of the tech is available at www.3D-Avatar-Store.com. The system works as follows: a person's head is laser scanned, at the same time dozens of single photos are taken of that p…

Very interesting technology. I used your website, uploaded three pictures -- it failed on the first, and worked somewhat on the others. I'm guessing it needs a more experienced user base? Assuming that model generation requires human supervision, do you think the neural network algorithm scales to the numbers mentioned in the article (trained on 12 million photos, and operating in 7 different states)?

BTW, all the best with your website. Hope you take more avatars "where go where no man has gone before!"

Re: The Face Scan Arrives

#47
post #6

If VR headsets like Oculus Rift take off, this problem can be mitigated. People will walk around with headsets to cover their entire face, defeating the cameras. Surveillance is going to happen, if you ban government surveillance, the public will get this tech and drones and be doing it anyway. So the robust way to fight it is to plan your life knowing that you can always be monitored and someone will always know whe…

Face Visors: http://www.sungrubbies.com/Web%20images/SolarHat-UV-Protecti...

Re: The Face Scan Arrives

#48
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for the part where you're a person wearing a highly unusual outfit..

Which the machine won't recognise as a person (and will discard). It would take a human to track you but that's old school. Of course, that's only until gait recognition takes over from face recognition.

I'm guessing a reco fail raises flags -- so if you try to cheat the system, it just escalates than instance to an outsourced turk somewhere..

Re: The Face Scan Arrives

#49
post #4

> "While this sort of technology may have benefits for law enforcement (recall that the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings were identified with help from camera footage), it also invites abuse." 1. Yes /without/ this technology, and 2. How would that have prevented the Boston tragedy if it were in use? What exactly does NYT mean here.

When they identified the first blurred images of the suspects' faces they put out the images hoping people could help identify the faces they were interested in. I assume they're saying that with better technology they'd be able to instantly identify those faces, instead of relying on putting them up on TV (where the suspects can see them and know they're on to them). So it wouldn't have prevented the attack, but it…

Perhaps, but they were caught pretty fast already, to be honest. The insinuation is that somehow this technology would have prevented the attacks in the first place, which is highly improbable.

Re: The Face Scan Arrives

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do it with only a single ocular image (eye, eyebrow, and surrounding skin texture) rather than the full face. Using 1:1 matching environments are common for NIST challenges.

Do you have any papers on your work? Would be great if you add a link to them.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~vboddeti/papers/icb_2012.pdf

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~vboddeti/papers/ijcb_2011.pdf

I have two more in the pipe (one still awaiting acceptance, and the other is accepted but yet to be added to IEEEXplore)

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