Face Recognition: An Impossible Mission?

The problem I've always had with biometric security is that I have a hard time separate fact from fiction. That's what happens when you watch too many "Mission Impossible" episodes. Guys peeling off rubber masks to reveal their real identity. Fake fingerprints. Voice matching.

While Tom Cruise has been working on the fiction part of the equation, Ioannis Kakadiaris and his crew at the University of Houston's Computational Biomedicine Lab (CBL) have been working on the fact. That's why they developed what they call URxD face recognition software that uses a three-dimensional snapshot of a person’s face to create a unique identifier. Just like Tom Cruise.

And, according to the results of the Face Recognition Vendor Test (FRVT 2006),a performance benchmark for 3-D face recognition technology, URxD does a pretty darn good job in 3D face recognition solutions based on the face’s shape,

"Accuracy is the name of the game in 3-D face recognition," says Kakadiaris. "What makes our system so accurate is the strength of the variables that we use to describe a person’s face."

Kakadiaris goes on to say that "remembering dozens of personal identification numbers and passwords is not the solution to identity theft. PINs and passwords are not only inconvenient to memorize, but also are impractical to safeguard. In essence, they merely tie two pieces of information together; once the secret is compromised, the rest follows. The solution is to be able to tie your private information to your person in a way that cannot be compromised."

That's true, but it sounds like Professor Kakadiaris hasn't seen Mission Impossible III.

Posted by Jon Erickson at 08:45 AM  Permalink