Police use facial recognition to collar suspects caught on CCTV

Essex Police is involved in testing facial recognition software that will match photofits of criminals to images of suspects picked up by CCTV cameras.

The system will take images from cameras, artists' sketches and e-fits and try to match them up with a database of over 160,000 images.

Run in conjunction with Securicor Information Systems and US biometrics firm, Visionics, the Essex force is using a system based on Visionics' FaceIt facial recognition software.

"We have been installing our technology on Essex Police systems for a few months now and the trial will run for three months," said Tim Pidgeon, director of business development at Visionics UK. "We are very confident indeed that it will extend beyond this period."

The Visionics engine will integrate with the existing photo database, provided by Securicor.

"We have been using Securicor's Video Witness for some time," said Detective Sergeant Steve Jones from Essex Police divisional HQ. "Biometrics is an exciting new technology, and I'm hopeful this system will prove its time has come."

Whether its time has come for the network manager remains to be seen. There is still plenty of scepticism over the price and accuracy of biometric security.Pidgeon, however, was adamant the technology would take off now the basic infrastructure was in place. "PCs come equipped with cameras, as do many laptops, and as will new 3G phones," he said.

The technology works on an algorithm known as local feature analysis. It maps 20 points on the human face to generate a facial scan as reliable as a fingerprint.

"The technology works exactly like a search engine," said Pidgeon. "After the search, the top matches will be returned and it is then down to the human operator to make the final decision."

He added that many Visionics customers used the technology for network logins.

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