“Essentially, advanced new intelligent
facial recognition technology uses Big
Data analytics, AI and Machine Learning
to capture faces, establish factors such
as their age, gender and ethnicity,
analyse their facial expressions and
even match and identify the person.
And because it is constantly learning,
the more you ‘train’ the technology, the
better it becomes. There is massive
potential for this type of technology.”
Coetzee says that by adding intelligent
facial recognition technology to
existing video surveillance systems,
retailers could not just count how many
customers looked at a particular area of
the store, but also determine how many
customers came back more than once,
conversions, customer demographics
and how they reacted to the products –
based on their facial expressions.
This allows for highly accurate market
research covering not just customer
demographics, but also market sentiment.
Retailers could also blacklist the faces of
known criminals or fraudsters or receive
notifications when certain high-value
customers enter their stores.
At stadiums and public events, intelligent
facial recognition technology can be
deployed to identify troublemakers,
manage risk or identify and protect VIPs.
And at casinos, it could be harnessed
to identify regulars, VIPs or even people
behaving suspiciously.
For safety and security, intelligent facial
recognition allows authorities to list
people of interest and be notified when
they pass a camera; or secure a region
of interest by triggering an alert when an
unauthorised person enters that area.
It can also complement existing
biometric access control solutions such
as fingerprint turnstiles, allowing the
enterprise to identify which employee
committed a crime.
At international border posts and
airports, intelligent facial recognition
68
Marius Coetzee,
CEO of identity
specialists Ideco
Advanced new facial
recognition technology
has come to market
to add intelligence to
surveillance systems.
is rapidly being rolled out to confirm
identity at passport control as part of
biometric-enabled ‘curb to gate’ airport
automation programmes, which are
expected to generate US$1.3 billion in
revenue over the next five years.
“With this new technology, there is so
much more information added to the
video feed,” said Coetzee.
“You can ‘wrap’ a face, extract the
features and expressions, produce an
identikit of the individual, identify the
person and recognise them every time
they pass a camera, identify who they
associate with and track how they move
through the organisation.
“Because this technology is highly
sophisticated, it was previously only
in use by big-budget law enforcement
agencies. But the barriers to entry
have dropped and it is now becoming
available to enterprises,” he says.
Ideco recently partnered with
international firm IWT to bring its
XnapBox intelligent facial recognition
technology to South Africa and launched
the solutions to keen interest at the
recent Association of Certified Fraud
Examiners conference in Sandton.
“We saw significant interest in the
technology because it is unique in
the country, has a massive range
of applications, adds new levels of
intelligence to surveillance investments
and simply integrates into existing
systems,” added Coetzee. u
Issue 08
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