Evansville Airport Gets Face Rec

From the Evansville Courier & Press:

Security is the paramount issue among air travelers these days, but Evansville Regional Airport — like other commercial airports throughout the world — rely on videocassette recorder security systems whose nonspecific tapes can take hours, days and sometimes weeks to decipher when suspicious concerns arise.

That, however, is about to change at the local airport.

The Evansville airport is the first in the nation to get a new technological security system, known as a 3VR (Third-Generation Video Recorder), said Bob Working, the airport manager. The searchable surveillance system uses a Google-like analytical search engine for spewing out valuable information instantly. For example, it displays in an instant on a computer monitor clear images of thousands of faces for identification purposes.

Eric Moss, vice president/director of data services for Gaither Technologies/STC, demonstrates a 3VR security system as company President Steve Rudolph is recorded on video, in the screen at left. The unit features searchable facial recognition and motion-changing events.

Face Rec Speeds Airport Lines

Adding to the existent iris and fingerprint "trusted traveler" enrollment scheme, now face rec is being added to the package at U.S. and U.K. airports to both improve security and speed frequent international travelers through security lanes. The British and American governments have launched a partnership to allow enrolled "trusted travelers" who fly frequently between their respective countries, to bypass security lines after a quick face scan. The "new" program basically just adds face rec to the existing iris enrollment program for trusted travelers, which to me says that 1)face rec is working a helluva lot better than it did ten years ago and 2) iris and fingerprint recognition might not be working well enough if officials feel the need to add face rec technology to the existing program.

UK Tests Face Rec at Airports

The UK government is set to be the latest to test facial recognition technology on a large scale. British border officials plan to test a new facial recognition system at airports this summer to see if it can boost security and reduce overcrowding.

American and French airports were the first to test face rec and both are now testing second generation technologies. Similarly the London Olympics committee and the Nashville School District are both testing face recognition software, but the most ambitious project to date seems to be the nationwide deployment of face recognition in South Korea.

Mass Iris Scanning May Replace Airport Queues

From GCN Insider:

“Envision a future in which large-scale portal screening such as at airports is no longer a matter of forming long, snaking lines for serial processing, but more nearly resembles Grand Central Station, with individual travelers moving in a Brownian way,” — that is, any way they want to, William Gravel, a Defense Department consultant, said to the audience at a recent biometrics conference in Baltimore. “It is a vision,” he said, but “it is not a fantasy.”