iDentify Facial Search Tool

A facial recognition tool was selected by ASIS as one of the 10 best new products at their 2012 show. While facial recognition has been around for many years, it remains a niche. In this note, we review the product, iDentify Face Search examining how it fits in the market, what applications it is best for and what competitive options exist to it.

Background

The developer, iViewSystems, core product is a case management and tracking tool, named iTrack. The new facial recognition tool is intended to be used as a component of that overall platform but can be purchased and used separately. Additionally, iViewSystems offers a real time facial surveillance solution, iGWatch that is best known for an Ontario casino deployment monitoring self-excluded gamblers.

iDentify is thick client application that allows users to import their own photos and find matches among them, using facial recognition and gender analysis. The company does not provide third party photos nor watch lists and is intended for use by larger organizations that often maintain large databases of photos of employees, suspects, etc. When used with their iTrack case management solution, it can better tap into other data recorded about suspects and issues. The demo video below overviews using iDentify:

iDentify, purchased separately, is available for ~$10,000 USD.

Competitive Options

We are aware of 2 competitive options:

• Safran Biometrica offers Virtual Casino 6 [link no longer available] which is a similar thick client, focused on the casino market that shares photos of known "card counters, slot and table game cheats (along with known associates), exclusion lists, gaming scams," plus regular updates to those lists. We do not have pricing for this offering.
• 3VR CrimeDex is a web service that enables sharing and comparing photos and identification of suspects among end users primarily in retail, banking and gaming (overview video here). When a user uploads a suspect photo, a CrimeDex analyst will run 3VR's facial recognition of that photo against existing database of suspects and will forward high probability hits to the user. Additionally, CrimeDex can be used to collaborate, record and share information on suspects but it does not replace traditional case management tools. CrimeDex costs $595 per year though the company reports most users are members via associations of security and fraud professionals.

The main difference of these two is tapping into / comparing against 3rd party watchlists.

Conclusion

Given its price, need for building one's own database and best fit as part of an iTrack case management system, we see iDentify as a niche tool for large scale organizations.