BBC 10 Minute Video On Using Facial Surveillance To Track Terror Suspects

JH
John Honovich
Jul 28, 2017
IPVM

Watch it:

Key points from the video:

  • It is primarily a promotion for UK manufacturer Digital Barriers, which is surely great press for them.
  • They show facial surveillance but it is a super simple demo setup which shows nothing about how it would really work in production, at scale.
  • The impetus of the segment is the recent terrorist events in the UK but they admit that the terrorists were "on the radar but not under the microscope when they attacked", so even if they used facial surveillance and it worked, it not clear what they would have done with them since they had not yet committed nor were wanted for committing a crime.
  • Towards the ends, they suggest that facial surveillance could also be used for search / intelligence gathering to "determine patterns of how often people visited a location" though the likelihood that the system missed potential suspects and undercounts activities is high.
  • It ends with the obligatory privacy rights advocate but no discussion at all about how well the system works at scale. The demos shows matches at .51 or .65 confidence, which in a real deployment scanning tens of thousands of faces daily and with numerous people on watch lists raises questions about the level of false alerts.

Any thoughts or questions on this?

(1)
(1)
U
Undisclosed #1
Jul 29, 2017

http://news.163.com/17/0606/11/CM8D1O8A00018AOP.html

There is one report about Facial Surveillance in the real project in China.

Right now,there are more and more real facial surveillance projects in China.And a lot of new intelligent Algorithm company in China.

Face++ is one of the famous one(in the above report that project seems use their facial algorithm)

https://www.megvii.com/#jzl_kwd=41736852121&jzl_ctv=11071587676&jzl_mtt=1&jzl_adt=cl1

 

 

 

 

JH
John Honovich
Aug 06, 2017
IPVM

#1, thanks for sharing that. The 163.com articles make a rather amazing claim:

It was mentioned that the criminals would deliberately block the face to escape the detection of face recognition. However, in the field of security, face recognition technology is not only able to recognize who you are, but also to remember your stature features and dressed, such as can detect and judge the video of the staff in the gender, age, Backpack, umbrella or luggage, and even the direction of walking and walking speed, to provide clues for the police.

Also, the sample shot is over a very wide area:

I would guess that this is not some radical technological breakthrough but marketing hype.

On the other hand, Chinese police has so many people they can throw at watching video, going through false alerts, etc., that they may very well be able to supplement to catch suspects with a combination of technology and people.

U
Undisclosed #1
Aug 08, 2017

It was mentioned that the criminals would deliberately block the face to escape the detection of face recognition. However, in the field of security, face recognition technology is not only able to recognize who you are, but also to remember your stature features and dressed, such as can detect and judge the video of the staff in the gender, age, Backpack, umbrella or luggage, and even the direction of walking and walking speed, to provide clues for the police.

I would guess that this is not some radical technological breakthrough but marketing hype.

Yes,John Maybe you are right.some points they use the inflated language and a kind of marketing hype.But I also think the facial Algorithm is already ok to use in the real project in China.

the one i listed(on the above 163.com),just one kind of example actually one Fugitive had escaped a lot of years,and recently he showed up in a railway station(that station just installed a new facial recognition system recently).then soon he was caught,This report was showed in the China National TV(CCTV news),so a lot of normal people know such kind of things in China.So it become be popular,and a lot of media follow up such kind of news.

In the real project,there were other facial Algorithm company had used their products in the real project.And a lot of Fugitives had been captured,just before these news had never been in the National TV news,so only the media in the security industry would report it.And a lot of security media have more connection with security factory,so more kind of marketing hype.
For the 163.com,usually their news is more natural,they report the hot news.
Btw,there is another company called Yitu,also do the  facial Algorithm.
In the recent FRVT(Face Recognition Vendor Test),they won the number1.
As i know,they said FRVT is kind of facial testing for real projects,not just for fun.
The testing data should be millions.
As it is a test standard setup by  NIST,In USA,there must be more information,I hope at your side can share more information about FRVT too.
So i think some Chinese facial Algorithm company must have some radical technological breakthrough(Maybe on the big datas?or on the Recognition accuracy even the picture is not just kind of 1 meters away clear picture?I also do not know details)
 
 
UI
Undisclosed Integrator #2
Aug 08, 2017

We use quite a few of digital barriers products and they are really good very reliable so this is an interesting development. Most of their software is developed from Military systems. 

(1)
UD
Undisclosed Distributor #3
Aug 08, 2017

Let's see if they can use the technology to find this guy!  I hope they catch him.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/shocking-moment-jogger-barges-unknown-woman-into-path-of-oncoming-bus-on-putney-bridge-a3606216.html

 

(1)
UD
Undisclosed Distributor #3
Aug 08, 2017

Regarding the use of this technology, if it can be deployed properly I would support it.  

I met a person with Adobe recently that helps law enforcement catch child sex offenders and traffickers through tools with Adobe photo shop.  (He gave a fascinating albeit disturbing presentation on what is happening, and I wish I could do more to help them.)  One side comment he made was the CIA and other spy agencies are having a hard time finding candidates for covert operations because of their cover being blown in social media like Facebook and Instagram.  I understood that if your face is in the system anywhere, at anytime, you're not a spy candidate.  If that's the case, and we've already lost our privacy voluntarily, I'm not opposed to losing more privacy on the street.  If the technology actually works as claimed.

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