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Computers
have become much more adept at “recognizing” human
faces during the past two years, states a report released
today by the Commerce Department’s National Institute
of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Scientists
from NIST, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA) and DoD Counterdrug Technology Development Program
Office have completed the most comprehensive evaluation
to date of commercially available face recognition
systems, and concluded that
the technology has made significant advances. The study, Face Recognition
Vendor Test 2002 (FRVT 2002), was performed in response
to the USA PATRIOT Act and the
Enhanced Border Security Act.
The primary objective of FRVT 2002 was to provide performance
measures for assessing the capability of automatic
face recognition systems to meet
real-world
scenarios—verification of identity, identification of an unknown individual
and detection of an individual on a watch list. Key findings of the study include new data about verification,
demographics, and indoor and outdoor matching abilities.
The study shows that there has been a 50 percent reduction
in error rates since comparable tests were conducted in 2000.
For verification (i.e., determining whether a person is who
he or she claims to be), the best facial recognition systems
are equivalent to 1998 fingerprint matching technologies, yielding
a 90 percent verification rate with a 1 percent false acceptance
rate. This is a substantial improvement since the FRVT 2000,
where the verification rate was 80 percent.
For the first time, researchers evaluated demographic factors
impacting the ability to recognize faces. These results show
that males are easier to identify than females, and older
people are easier to recognize than younger people.
The study also found significant differences in matching
abilities depending on whether the images were taken indoors
or outdoors. Face recognition performance for outdoor images
is only about half as good as for indoor images, where there
is better control of lighting conditions.
Ten companies participated in the tests, which involved
matching 121,589 images of 37,437 individuals.
The
complete report is available at www.itl.nist.gov/iad/894.03/face/face.html#FRVT2002 and is also posted at www.frvt.org.
Key
results from FRVT 2002 were included in a recent report
to Congress, also mandated by the PATRIOT
Act and the Enhanced
Border Security Act. In an appendix to that report, NIST
recommended a dual approach that employs both fingerprint
and face recognition technologies in a biometric system that
would make the nation’s borders more secure. NIST made
its recommendation in conjunction with the Departments of
Justice and State. The complete NIST appendix is available
at www.itl.nist.gov/iad/894.03/NISTAPP_Nov02.pdf.
FRVT
2002 had the backing of numerous government organizations.
FRVT 2002 sponsors (those organizations
that provided resources
for the evaluation) were: NIST, DARPA, the Department of
Justice’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the
Department of State, the Transportation Security Administration
(TSA), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
FRVT 2002 supporters were: CTAC, the U.S. Customs Service,
the Department of Energy, the Drug Enforcement Administration
(DEA), the U.S. Secret Service, the Technical Support Working
Group, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS),
the Canadian Passport Office, the United Kingdom Biometrics
Working Group, and Australian Customs.
As a
non-regulatory agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s
Technology
Administration, NIST develops and promotes measurement, standards
and technology to enhance productivity, facilitate trade
and improve the quality of life.
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