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Technology Stocks : Viisage Technology (VISG) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: rrufff who wrote (235)	10/27/2001 8:39:27 PM
From: afrayem onigwecher	Respond to of 536

T.F. Green Airport to install face-recognition technology By Associated Press, 10/27/2001 08:12 WARWICK, R.I. (AP) T.F. Green Airport will become one of the first airports in the country to deploy face-recognition technology in the war on terrorism. In the next 30 days, cameras will start scanning the faces of everyone who enters the terminal and compare them to digital images on file in a database of known criminals and suspected terrorists, according to a report in The Providence Journal. Michael Cheston, executive director of the Airport Corporation, said the immediate need for the technology is so compelling that the corporation has decided to spend its own increasingly tight resources whatever the cost instead of lining up and waiting for federal grants. Face-recognition technology can identify suspects even if their appearance has changed in the months or years since they were photographed. It can identify suspects who have grown or shaved a beard since being photographed, and even those who may attempt to disguise themselves as the opposite sex. Civil-liberties groups have expressed concern about America becoming a surveillance society in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But Cheston dismissed those concerns yesterday, saying, ''We won't be playing big brother, we won't be keeping files on people. We'll catch people who have outstanding warrants. What's wrong with that?'' Cheston and other airport officials discussed security issues at a recent breakfast meeting with the city administration, City Council, and Warwick's delegation to the State House. At the time of the briefing, the corporation was planning to buy a face-recognition or ''biometric identification'' system from Viisage Technology of Littleton, Mass., a subsidiary of Lau Technologies. At a meeting later in the day, however, airport staff recommended seeking bids from several companies. Colby Cameron, chairman of the Airport Corporation, said the system ultimately selected will run on image databases that airports around the nation expect to obtain from the FBI, State Department and other federal agencies. Edward Carter, chief of the Airport Police Department, said the systems are at least 85-percent accurate in matching people with images on file.