Facial recognition accuracy begins to drop if the images of a person were taken more than six years apart, according to recent research at Michigan State University.
According to MSU Today, the university publication, the researchers studied two police mugshot databases of repeat criminal offenders with each offender having a minimum of four images acquired over at least a five year period. 23,600 repeat offenders were studied in total.
Responding to this, FST Biometrics, an Israel-based biometrics company, has told asmag.com that any single identifier has its limitations.
“FST’s perspective is that ANY technological single identifier, including any biometrics technology on its own, has limitations in the ability to deliver accurate and protected identification,” said Arie Melamed, Chief Marketing Officer of FST Biometrics “This is why FST’s visual identification technology and our IMID solution uses a fusion of technologies with multiple identifiers.”
Arie added that the potential identification challenge of aging must be addressed. "To that end, FST has developed a solution to this in our next software version. We plan to demo it at the coming ISC West event in April."
The research was conducted by Michigan State University biometrics expert Anil Jain and doctoral student Lacey Best-Rowden. They found that 99 percent of the face changes could still be recognized up to six years later. It is after six years that the inconsistencies start to show up.
"This research shows the importance of capturing new images every four to five years to reduce the number of false positives or chance of not finding a candidate in a facial recognition search due to length of time between captures,” Pete Langenfeld, manager in the Biometrics and Identification Division at the Michigan State Police told MSU Today. “Criminal acquisition is dependent on the number of times a person is arrested, as the majority are not required to update their image. However, civil applications that require updated facial images should look at reducing the time between captures if it is greater than every four years.”