Airport face-recognition systems no safety panacea
By Noah Barkin
NEW YORK, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Face recognition technology is being touted as a powerful weapon in the war on terrorism, but its potential for spotting criminals before they set foot on commercial airliners is overblown, according to experts who have tested so-called biometric systems.
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They say that even under controlled conditions, the systems succeed in identifying individuals from a given database only a little more than half the time -- a rate which is diminished significantly in a typical airport environment.
``You could expect a surveillance system using biometrics to capture a very very small percentage of known criminals in a given database,'' said Samir Nanavati, a partner at New York-based consulting firm International Biometric Group.
Still, experts say the technology has potential. For one, the technology could be effective in speeding movement of low-risk passengers onto airplanes. That, in turn, could make existing face-to-face security checks more effective.
In any case, the Sept. 11 hijacked plane attacks on New York and Washington have raised the profile of these face-, hand- and fingerprint-screening technologies and fueled support for their use and rapid deployment in airports across the United States.
The U.S. Department of Transportation, in a report on airport security issued earlier this month, said breakthrough technologies in passenger identification should be incorporated into airport security programs ``as soon as practicable.''
And investors have poured their money into the stock of leading biometric firms like Littleton, Mass.-based Viisage Technology Inc. (NasdaqNM:VISG - news) and Minnetonka, Minn.-based Visionics Corp. (NasdaqNM:VSNX - news) since last month's attacks.
On Wednesday, Vancouver, B.C.-based Imagis Technologies (Vancouver:NAB.V - news) said Oakland International Airport would begin using the facial-recognition technology it supplies to police departments.
``Facial recognition technology can spot individuals on the wanted list as they pass through metal detectors,'' Visionics CEO Joseph Attick told Reuters this week. ``It is very easy to implement and does not inconvenience passengers.''
A LONG WAY TO GO
But industry experts say the technology has a long way to go before it can do what some investors and government officials expect it to do -- weed out unwanted passengers in a cost-effective and efficient way.
The technology used by the Oakland Airport is limited -- it works only for passengers who refuse to give a name or who clearly give a false name.
Inconsistent lighting, different pose angles and facial expressions, eye glasses and beards, are enough to thwart more advanced systems which, no matter how technologically sophisticated, are ultimately only as good as the databases to which they are linked.
Those databases are often full of outdated, poor-quality pictures of wanted criminals, making identification matches difficult.
Experts with experience in biometrics believe that a host of obstacles -- technological hurdles, privacy concerns and worries about compounding delays -- will stand in the way of widespread deployment of advanced face recognition systems for the foreseeable
future.
``You could have passengers pose in front of a camera, look straight into it, and the system would be about as accurate as a metal scanner because it would be going off all the time,'' said James Wayman, director of the San Jose State University Center for Biometric Testing.
FAST-TRACK PASSENGERS
Still, Biometric technologies are promising, but, for now, that promise may have more to do with airport convenience than passenger security.
Wayman points to a ``hand geometry'' system called INSPASS which is used by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to allow frequent travelers to bypass immigration lines at nine major airports.
``I am a great supporter of systems like INSPASS, or rapid clearance cards that allow pre-selected passengers to get on airplanes with relatively low levels of screening,'' said Wayman.
Under such a system, frequent flyers who are deemed to be low-risk passengers, could obtain a smart card with biometric links to their fingerprint or hand.
When passing through security, all they would need to do would be to swipe the card, place their hand on a reader, and be waved through in a kind of ``fast track'' boarding.
With these pre-selected passengers passing rapidly onto planes, overall waiting times would be trimmed because the amount of passengers going through traditional airport security checks would be diminished.
``I think it is likely we will see over the next 24 months the emergence of pre-enrolled programs with passenger identification cards, very likely involving some form of biometric application,'' said Nanavati.
``Either you go through on the fast track or you wait in the long line.'' |
