Face recognition kit fails in Fla airport

Zardon · May 27, 2002, 09:41 AM

Palm Beach International Airport security workers would be racking up heaps of overtime pay dealing with more than fifty false positives daily if their bosses were to install Visionics' ( http://www.visionics.com/ ) terror-busting face recognition gear, the airport administrators have concluded.

The kit had been installed free of charge for a trial run. The airport, not surprisingly, decided to test it on volunteers who work there over four weeks. Using fifteen volunteers and a data base of 250 snapshots, Palm Beach County administrators enjoyed a success rate of less than fifty per cent. That is, more than half the people the kit should have flagged slipped past undetected.

The rate of false positives was also discouraging. The tests indicate that over one thousand people per day would be falsely pegged at a security checkpoint handling five thousand passengers per day. The rate was approximately two to three false alarms per hour per checkpoint. We need hardly elaborate on the mayhem which would result from a gizmo that finds a terrorist every twenty minutes. It would be impossible to get a single plane off the ground in such circumstances.

Eyeglasses gave the system a great deal of difficulty, in spite of copious Visionics marketing hype denying this particular glitch. Small rotations of the head, fifteen to thirty degrees off the camera's focal point, also bamboozled it repeatedly, and the lighting had to be just right.

The ACLU obtained a copy of the Palm Beach report and has posted it here.

Meanwhile, the airport has since announced that it won't be adopting the Visionics handy terrorist catcher after all.

By Thomas C Greene in Washington

Malus · May 27, 2002, 10:43 PM

Making products that don't work is a good way to go out of business.

Zardon · May 27, 2002, 11:00 PM

is life that logical? I mean look at MS for 5 years? they did ok.

Malus · May 28, 2002, 12:47 AM

Their products work well enough for those who don't know any better.

May 27, 2002, 09:41 AM	#1
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,480 Rep Power: 177	Face recognition kit fails in Fla airport Palm Beach International Airport security workers would be racking up heaps of overtime pay dealing with more than fifty false positives daily if their bosses were to install Visionics' ( http://www.visionics.com/ ) terror-busting face recognition gear, the airport administrators have concluded. The kit had been installed free of charge for a trial run. The airport, not surprisingly, decided to test it on volunteers who work there over four weeks. Using fifteen volunteers and a data base of 250 snapshots, Palm Beach County administrators enjoyed a success rate of less than fifty per cent. That is, more than half the people the kit should have flagged slipped past undetected. The rate of false positives was also discouraging. The tests indicate that over one thousand people per day would be falsely pegged at a security checkpoint handling five thousand passengers per day. The rate was approximately two to three false alarms per hour per checkpoint. We need hardly elaborate on the mayhem which would result from a gizmo that finds a terrorist every twenty minutes. It would be impossible to get a single plane off the ground in such circumstances. Eyeglasses gave the system a great deal of difficulty, in spite of copious Visionics marketing hype denying this particular glitch. Small rotations of the head, fifteen to thirty degrees off the camera's focal point, also bamboozled it repeatedly, and the lighting had to be just right. The ACLU obtained a copy of the Palm Beach report and has posted it here. Meanwhile, the airport has since announced that it won't be adopting the Visionics handy terrorist catcher after all. By Thomas C Greene in Washington

May 27, 2002, 10:43 PM	#2
Malus BSD SMASH! Join Date: May 2002 Location: A rabbit hole. . . Posts: 1,170 Rep Power: 0	Making products that don't work is a good way to go out of business. __________________ quad (FreeBSD/amd64 8-CURRENT): Intel Q6600 - Asus P5E-VM HDMI - 2x2 GB Kingston PC6400 DDR2 Ram - Seagate 320GB 7200RPM HD - 2xSeagate 1TB 7200RPM HD in RAID 1 via ZFS - Lite-On 20x DVD Multi Recorder - Coolermaster Centurion 5 router (FreeBSD/amd64 8-CURRENT): Intel E4500 - Intel D945GCNL - 2 GB PC6400 Mushkin Ram - Lite-On 48x24x48x16 - Seagate 320GB 7200RPM HD - Silverstone SST-SG02-F wanderer (FreeBSD/i386 7-CURRENT): Lenovo Thinkpad T61p mini (OS X 10.5): Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.8Ghz, 4 GB Mushkin PC5400 Ram - Headroom MicroDAC Portable sound: Rockboxed iPod Video -> Westone UM2's Not-So-Portable Sound: Headroon MicroDAC -> Singlepower PPX3-SLAM -> Grado RS-1's or Beyerdynamic DT-880's Very-Not-Portable-Sound: Squeezebox v3 -> Denon AVR-1507 -> B&W 683's & Sunfire HRS-10

May 28, 2002, 12:47 AM	#4
Malus BSD SMASH! Join Date: May 2002 Location: A rabbit hole. . . Posts: 1,170 Rep Power: 0	Their products work well enough for those who don't know any better. __________________ quad (FreeBSD/amd64 8-CURRENT): Intel Q6600 - Asus P5E-VM HDMI - 2x2 GB Kingston PC6400 DDR2 Ram - Seagate 320GB 7200RPM HD - 2xSeagate 1TB 7200RPM HD in RAID 1 via ZFS - Lite-On 20x DVD Multi Recorder - Coolermaster Centurion 5 router (FreeBSD/amd64 8-CURRENT): Intel E4500 - Intel D945GCNL - 2 GB PC6400 Mushkin Ram - Lite-On 48x24x48x16 - Seagate 320GB 7200RPM HD - Silverstone SST-SG02-F wanderer (FreeBSD/i386 7-CURRENT): Lenovo Thinkpad T61p mini (OS X 10.5): Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.8Ghz, 4 GB Mushkin PC5400 Ram - Headroom MicroDAC Portable sound: Rockboxed iPod Video -> Westone UM2's Not-So-Portable Sound: Headroon MicroDAC -> Singlepower PPX3-SLAM -> Grado RS-1's or Beyerdynamic DT-880's Very-Not-Portable-Sound: Squeezebox v3 -> Denon AVR-1507 -> B&W 683's & Sunfire HRS-10

May 27, 2002, 11:00 PM	Thread Starter #3
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,480 Rep Power: 177	is life that logical? I mean look at MS for 5 years? they did ok.