Facial Recognition Systems Better Protect US Borders

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), through its US-VISIT program, is currently collecting photos and digital fingerprints from all travelers entering the United States via airports, in an attempt to better protect the nation's security. But scientists say that the system has a lot of inconveniences, especially related to the clarity of the snapshots that are usually available during a criminal investigation or other inquiry.

 

A study conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in 2007, revealed that, in real-life conditions, a significant portion of the pictures that were available for scanning had poor quality and rendered the expensive machines practically useless. The main reason for this was that airport cameras were usually disguised, so travelers had no idea where to look, when the officials told them about the picture.

 

A team of researchers from NIST, led by Mary Theofanos, decided to conduct a study at Dulles International Airport, in Washington DC, to try and figure out how to solve these problems. The researchers noticed that camera operators were not adjusting the settings of the camera for each individual, so that their faces would come into sharp focus. This caused blurry images, which made it difficult for the software to pinpoint the areas of the face it bases its analysis on.

 

Installing a normal-looking camera and tuning its setting constantly prompted a huge success on a 300-people control group, which were scanned in real-life airport conditions. Though the environment was harsh, the researchers managed to get fully-recognizable images in all 100 percent of cases, which indicates that the previous approach to facial recognition was erroneous.

 

Civil rights groups argue that these systems aren't necessary at all, especially for people coming to visit the US, who do not appreciate being treated like criminals, and submitted to various databases. They argue that anyone could be a criminal, and that America already has enough of those at home, which should be dealt with before moving towards foreign ones.