Lesley
Ciarula Taylor
The facial-recognition software
Toronto police will use to track down suspects in its G20 summit
investigation is an off-the-shelf tool that can sort through multiple
databases very quickly.
[thestar.com] The Canadian Bankers Association
bought and installed the software because “the banks and the CBA have
investigative functions, too. We investigate crimes against banks,”
spokeswoman Maura Drew-Lytle said Thursday.
Their source is mostly “photos from
security cameras” in banks, she said. Once the banks compile their
information, “we turn it over to the police.”
In the G20 investigation, the CBA and
its technicians trained in using facial-recognition software will help
police try to match the pictures they have from images on many different
databases, including those from Canada Border Services Agency.
Toronto police on Wednesday released
photographs of 10 suspects and asked the public’s help in identifying
them.
The cooperation between police and
the CBA evolved after months of pre-summit meetings with banks, downtown
merchants and police.
“It was all part of our planning to
deal with security issues,” said Drew-Lytle. “We let the police know we
had it. We have the licence and training. They said they would like our
help.”
Bank security cameras, or any CCTV
monitors, have a “large capacity to store information and retrieve it
quickly,” a biometrics expert not involved with the CBA explained.
But to use it to match “a face in a
crowd” to a database “is not a realistic application in the world
today,” he contended.
The CBA software is bought from one
of several companies that produce a variety of high-tech security
systems. Drew-Lytle declined to say which one.
Once such company, L-1 Identity
Solutions, produces the widely used FaceIt Argus facial-screening
software, which markets itself to governments, high-security buildings
and commercial operations such as banks to verify identities.
L-1 is not the CBA software provider,
but it can explain in general how the technology works.
FaceIt software can scan multiple
databases and produce results “in real-time” that distinguish between
twins, the company says.
The Bay department store uses FaceIt
to deter shoplifting. The software is configured to generate alerts when
“known offenders” walk into one of its 600 stores. So far, the Bay’s
Don Jobe said, the system has set off 22 alerts that have led to six
arrests.
FaceIt captures its 3-D images
through a live video stream using high-resolution cameras, the company
said.
[…] How facial-recognition software could track down G20 suspects … […]