Facial recognition has been around longer than most people think. It all started with Bertillon when he worked on face classification. Bertillon developed means by which portraits could be sorted by common morphological characteristics, the specific shapes of the different parts of the face, and therefore an individual’s photo could be found without having to resort to browsing through large collections of portraits. This is known as portrait parlé or spoken portrait. Facial recognition is also involved in identification line-up techniques in which a witness is confronted with a group of physically similar people, one of whom is a suspect. The witness must then decide whether one of the persons in the group was present at the scene of the crime or not. Today, police officers equipped with PDAs can quickly capture facial images and submit search requests to remote facial recognition systems, quickly determining whether an individual is known to law enforcement. These computers are very accurate; pierce county sheriff’s office in Washington State has demonstrated an accuracy rate of 94%. This is still not as accurate as fingerprint analysis but it can be very useful when fingerprint data does not exist or when multiple independent verification methods are desired.
This is very important because facial recognition can help police with identification. It also provides another resource for scientists to use instead of just fingerprint analysis. Facial recognition can provide law enforcement agencies with a valuable tool for multiple public safety applications.
This article was written very well. I liked how the article was broken into sections such as, background, general facial recognition, and criminal prevention.
http://www.forensicmag.com/article/facial-recognition-valuable-tool-law-enforcement?page=0,1
4 comments:
A little birdie told me that Jake Burns chose a particular branch of forensic science to learn about: facial recognition. Since I knew very little about this subject, I decided to read his article and learn more. In fact, I can name not one, not two, but THREE things about his report that I liked.
First of all, faces aren’t always easy to read like books. Sometimes, looks can be deceiving. But with new leaps in forensic technology nowadays, faces can be scanned onto computers, for example, and carefully examined for comparison with a suspected criminal. If the face matches with the criminal, that person is under arrest. As a result, this is for the greater good of society, so the crime rate will dramatically decrease.
However, despite Jake’s brilliant (and somewhat optimistic) writing style, I’m sorry to sound a bit pessimistic, but I’m afraid this summary is not 100% perfect. Specifically, I noticed two things that could have been a teensy bit better. I noticed that Jake used a lot of run-on sentences. Even though this is a forensic science class, grammar is equally important. Second, I would appreciate the article a bit more if Jake provided pictures of what he is trying to tell us. Photos from Google Images would be great; but just remember to give the source of the photo – no illegal copyright issues, please!
Lastly, I would like to say one more thing: I am very impressed with Jake’s writing style. Chances are that he could become a professional writer in the future, like a magazine or newspaper editor! Keep up the good work! I can’t wait for the next current event article.
Until next time,
Kathleen
I thought Jake did well explaining how facial recognition is occupied in an identification line-up technique where a witness is confronted with a group of physically similar people, one of whom is a suspect. Then how police officers equipped with PDAs can quickly capture facial images and submit search requests to remote facial recognition systems. Also, when he explained Bertillon.
There were two things that Jake could had done differently. The first thing was balance. His first body paragraph is much longer than his last two. There needs to be more balance. Secondly, he needs to improve his grammar. His sentences keep going on and on.
One thing that surprised me and that I was not aware of was the fact that police officers can quickly take snap shots of someone's face and it can be instantly analyzed at a facial recognition system to see if that person has any criminal records.
Molly Warnken
One aspect of this review that was very interesting and well written was the history of facial recognition. It was good to represent that facial recognition has been around for a long time and started way back with Bertillon. The way that facial recognition is done was also very well represented. It was good to mention the multiple ways that facial recognition is used when it comes to crimes and suspects. Writing about the accuracy of facial recognition was also very good. I especially liked the concession to fingerprinting still being the best way to identify an individual.
One way this review could have been made better was if there was more information about how facial recognition is being used in a new way. It has been used for a long time and it would be nice to know if something completely new was being done. Also an example of this use in criminal investigations could also make this review a little better.
This was a very good review and I liked knowing that this type of identification technique went back so far into history.
One aspect of this article that I enjoyed was that it gave a brief history of how facial recognition was started. It was also good that the article explained how facial recognition is used in the police force. It was also good that the facial recognition is very accurate in properly identifying a person. Fingerprinting is still the most definitive way to identify a person but facial recognition is becoming more affective.
The review could have been made better if it was a little longer or more detailed. More details would have provided a better sense of how this is used. Also if there could be more details about how this is actually used with PDAs and witness identification.
I was impressed by this article because I had known that photos were used to identify a person but it was interesting to learn the accuracy with which it could be used.
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