ut-oh, this aint good->Fresno Airport Dropped Viisage Facial ID System (Update1)
By Edmond Lococo
Fresno, California, May 30 (Bloomberg) -- Fresno Yosemite International Airport, the first U.S. airport to try Viisage Technology Inc.'s face-recognition technology, stopped using the system because of concerns about its accuracy, officials said.
The Viisage system was deployed at Fresno in October, though the airport stopped using it by January. It was removed by Feb. 1 and replaced by one from rival Visionics Corp., said Ron Cadle, vice president of closely held Pelco, the contractor running Fresno's trial of facial-recognition systems.
Fresno was one of four airports that had agreed to try the Viisage system, which compares the faces of ticketed passengers against a database of terrorists' photos. Airport spokeswoman Patti Miller confirmed the removal of the Viisage system.
``We started off with Viisage, but dropped Viisage and went with Visionics because it had a higher accuracy rate,'' Miller said in an interview.
Face recognition is an experimental technology being tried at airports in Massachusetts, California, Texas and Florida as part of an effort to boost security in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. U.S. airports are expected to spend $100 billion on security in 2003 and Viisage and Visionics are counting on their systems to grab a share of that market.
``This is totally new news to me,'' said Chief Executive Officer Tom Colatosti of Littleton, Massachusetts-based Viisage after he was informed today of the Fresno removal by Bloomberg News. ``I'm stunned by that.''
In an interview last week, Colatosti identified Fresno as one of the airports now using the system.
No Negative Feedback
Pelco's Cadle said Viisage was notified orally around the time of removal, but not in writing. He didn't say who he notified. Cadle declined to provide data on the relative performance of the systems from Viisage and Visionics, and only said the airport got better results from Visionics.
Colatosti said Viisage received no negative feedback from Fresno on the system and no notification it had been removed.
``I've never heard that we had a performance problem,'' in Fresno, Colatosti said. ``The last I heard they were very pleased with it.''
He said the manner of removal was ``inappropriate'' and ``unprofessional.''
Other airports that have tried the Viisage system include St. Petersburg International Airport in Florida and Boston's Logan International Airport, Colatosti said in last week's interview.
In the same interview, Colatosti said Viisage ``had won an order for Manchester, New Hampshire.'' The contract for New Hampshire's Manchester Airport was first announced in a press release May 16.
The company press release didn't disclose that the airport itself paid nothing for the Viisage system, which was presented by an independent foundation as a gift, according to airport and foundation officials.
`Gift Horse'
The Viisage face-recognition system was purchased by the Manchester Regional Industrial Foundation and presented to the airport for free, said airport director Kevin Dillon.
``I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I view this as a test,'' Dillon said. ``If we find after installing it that it's delaying processing times or coming up with too many false positives, we won't hesitate to take it out.''
The Manchester Regional Industrial Foundation is separate from the airport, said foundation chairman Patrick Duffy. It was established as a charitable trust in the 1960s to promote development of the airport.
Colatosti said the source of funding wasn't material.
``That's an internal kind of issue,'' Colatosti said.
Shares of Viisage fell 62 cents, or 10 percent, to $5.43. Minnetonka, Minnesota-based Visionics closed unchanged at $10.26. Shares in Viisage are up 16 percent since Sept. 11, while Visionics' shares have gained 24 percent in the same period. |
