Korean ATMs Exploring Face Rec Options

According to JoongAng Daily, one of three English-language daily newspapers in South Korea, the Korean National Police Agency is currently looking into new facial recognition technologies as part of a comprehensive public security plan to reduce crimes in the country.

Bank machines have been involved in several notable crimes in South Korea, including the highly-publicized murders by confessed serial killer Kang Ho-sun earlier this year. In those murders, an ATM was used to withdraw money from the victims' bank accounts before they were kidnapped and killed.

In the JoongAng Daily article discussing new attempts to further secure the nation's ATMs, the author discusses concerns around the implementation of facial recognition technologies, including problems with complicated instructions, cost and the technical headaches often involved:

"But ATMs with such advanced features still come with a litany of problems. Facial recognition machines were once test-run by several banks in 2005. Users were confused by a string of instructions such as "Raise your head, please" or "Step up to the machine, please," before being able to access their accounts. The disabled had even more trouble."

All of these arguments point to an interesting issue, and ultimately the resounding truth that facial recognition should not be implemented solely in the manner criticized above. Instead, government agencies should focus on using face finding technologies to help police procure better evidence, while also implementing face searching technologies in order to help track down and identify suspects.

Using these technologies, alerts can still be generated if someone with a mask or disguise attempts to use an ATM, but that notice would go directly to a monitoring center for evaluation, rather than immediately freezing all activity on the machine. As we know, when you adversely affect a customer's experience too much they become upset, and when too many people become upset the offending technology must be removed -- in this case, the removal wouldn't help anyone, and thus the complete freezing of ATM machines should be uniformly avoided.

3VR has created its own technology to address this problem by combining face finding, face matching and face searching. It is this synthesis of capabilities that ultimately makes the technology effective and leads to the best, least intrusive and most efficient results for all users -- from the smallest businesses looking to manage access control for a single door to multifaceted government agencies and airports.

India Bank Gets ATM Biometrics

From Rupee Times:

SBI Chief General Manager of Gujarat H C Pattnaik said, "The orders for biometric ATM's have been placed and we expect to install 150 such machines initially in important districts and talukas of the state by March end this year."

With identity theft and other forms of financial fraud on the rise, I expect to be seeing announcements like this more and more. Finger print verification is one way to go. Another is to use facial recognition to do the same thing. That approach has the benefit of being generally viewed as less intrusive from a privacy standpoint, and since it also requires banks to invest in the quality of their ATM cameras, it would also enhance a banks general surveillance capabilities.

What’s Working and What’s Not in Facial Surveillance

Facial recognition technology has certainly been a hot topic in 2008 – and one that will likely only continue to make headlines as more companies and organizations recognize its unique value within their security infrastructures.

When most people think of facial surveillance, however, what often comes to mind is the technology’s very public failure at the Super Bowl and other large-scale public venues over the past several years. Though the technology has certainly improved, we are still not much closer to being able to spot a bad guy in a crowd than we were then, and this points to the fact that it is facial recognition’s role within the larger security platform that allows the technology to function most effectively, and ultimately most accurately.

Nonetheless, there have been some important facial rec successes over the past year that deserve mentioning – let’s take a look at what’s working, what’s not, and most importantly, why.

Identifying Suspects: Using Facial Rec to Compare Captured Images to Police Database Mugshots

The Sagem Morpho MorphoFace Investigate (MFI) system has scored its first arrest in Pierce County, Washington. The Pierce County Sheriff's Department used the MFI biometric facial recognition application to identify a suspect by comparing an automatic teller machine (ATM) photograph against the department's digital database of 350,000 mug shots.

In the past, the only way police could conduct these types of investigations was to endlessly flip through mugshot books -- this is a major improvement and compelling evidence of the next generation of crimefighting taking place.

Identifying a Suspect Using Commercial Surveillance and Transaction Records

Just the other month I learned about the following incident from a 3VR customer. A man had been followed home from a large African bank and subsequently robbed after making a large withdrawl. While the victim didn't recognize the thief, he was able to point him out in bank surveillance footage leaving the bank after the victim. Normally, this is where the investigation would have become difficult; actually identifying the suspect. However, in this instance, the bank was able to perform a facial search against it's own surveillance archives using its 3VR system. The thief, it turns out, was actually a bank customer. Even though he was not in any police database, they were able to identify him using bank transaction records. You see, this robber's tactic was to spend a lot of time in the bank doing small transactions and other petty business while he watched and waited for his victims to withdraw a large amount of money. But once even a single image was of him was captured, the robber's face led bank officials and law enforcement right back to those trasactions...and the theif's real identity.

Alerting Security When the Bad Guys Arrive

Though an uncontrolled venue such as the Super Bowl may provide too difficult a context to do real-time facial alerting, in more controlled venues like banks and some retail establishments and using relatively targeted top-quality watch lists, it is now possible to use facial alerting successfully.

Only two days after pilot installation of the 3VR platform at another large international bank, a person wanted for check fraud entered the bank accompanied by an accomplice, approached the teller and began a transaction. The 3VR system being utilized in the branch recognized the person and immediately sent an alert to the bank’s security personnel, who compared the image to photos in order to confirm that it was indeed the suspected fraudster.

The bank’s security personnel were able to quickly contact the police, apprehend the woman at the branch and question her. She ultimately admitted to the fraud — case closed.

Looking Ahead

Facial surveillance has developed significantly with new technology and new approaches making up for many past failures. And while still certainly not perfect, modern "facial surveillance" represents a quantum leap forward from they days when all police had to go on were “WANTED” posters, mug shot books, and their own eyes and energy.

Top 10 Asian Telecom Predictions for 2008

IDC has revealed its top 10 telecommunications predictions for the Asia-Pacific region excluding Japan (APEJ) in 2008. These include greater demand for Web 2.0 and unified communications applications such as collaboration tools within the enterprise, as well as increasing awareness in IP-surveillance products.

8. IP surveillance With IP-surveillance tools currently being deployed in Beijing, China, as part of the 2008 Olympics security plan, 2008 is set to be a "big" year for the technology. "Businesses will be receptive to IP surveillance due to increased security concerns, as well as IP surveillance's cost effectiveness," IDC said.

IP surveillance technology will become popular in the
gaming, financial services, and retail industries, the study noted, citing
physical security as a primary concern for these vertical industries. I would
add banking to this list.

Next Gen Banking

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=7641

As banks build more branches to take advantage of customer demand for in-person experiences, they are looking to create more value by adding a variety of technologies designed for customer identification, screening, data collection and sales support.

As you enter the branch, a system identifies you by scanning your RFID loyalty card and then displays a personalized welcome message on the wall. At the same time, a sales representative is informed of your arrival and supplied with a quick summary of your financial situation. If you’re judged to be worth the effort, the sales rep will approach, shake hands, and gently inform you that if you maintain your current savings rate, you’ll be spending your Golden Years in a refrigerator carton.

RFID? Really? I am going to put my money on face recognition, possibly iris recognition, as the technologies that drive these kinds of changes.