Viisage Technology-facial recognition software
ÿ
For three weeks, Lakewood sheriff's detectives believed that the carjacking and battery case was unsolvable--no leads and no evidence. Then they installed FaceID, a new facial recognition software program released in October.
ÿÿÿÿÿWithin 90 seconds, the software matched the suspect's composite with photographs from the booking database of Los Angeles County.
ÿÿÿÿÿ
................................
ÿÿÿÿÿ"This could be as big as fingerprints," said Sgt. Bill Conley, a supervising detective at the Lakewood substation, the first in the nation to install FaceID. From a state grant, the Sheriff's Department paid $21,000 for FaceID and three accompanying programs.
ÿÿÿÿÿSan Diego-based ImageWare Software Inc. created FaceID in conjunction with Viisage Technology, a Littleton, Mass., firm. Tracy Toettcher, ImageWare's marketing manager, said the program was based on algorithms developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology .
ÿÿÿÿÿViisage uses the same software engines that are used to identify welfare and driver's license frauds--products released in mid-1996.
.....................
ÿÿÿÿÿFaceID enables law enforcement officials to compare pictures--composites, scanned still photos or surveillance camera images--with photos from a database. Los Angeles County, which now uses digital cameras to take booking photos, has about 200,000 pictures in its database.
ÿÿÿÿÿ
...................
Since the arrest of Ochoa, dozens of agencies have contacted the Lakewood station and ImageWare.
LA Times 12-8-97
latimes.com |
