Facial recognition cameras are everywhere, including in your smart phone. Many people rely on this technology to unlock their phones, open doors or make quick payments, but there is a problem: Everyone is wearing mask. What a hassle!
Now, tech companies have updated their software. Facial recognition technology can now identify people even if they are wearing a mask.
Beijing-based tech company Hanwang has announced a software which can correctly recognize 95 percent of people wearing masks, Engineering & Technology (E&T) reported. What's the secret? It's all about your eyes.
Marios Savvides, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, US, studies facial recognition technology. "As we get older," he said, "our faces change shape, but not the area around our eyes. It stays the same—even if we put on weight."
Another company has also been working on this kind of software. Tech5 has AI that measures the shape of your face. It also scans your iris (the colored part of your eyes). Tech5 hopes to ignore all of the face below the nose.
Facial recognition software is about more than just unlocking your phone. It's about public safety. Contact-free verification (验证) has become extremely important due to the COVID-19. More than that, facial recognition can be used to fight crime (犯罪). "It can detect crime suspects," said Huang Lei, Hanwang's president. Hanwang's technology is used by police in high-security settings. This means places like government buildings, subway stations and airports. Huang admits one big weakness of this new technology: It fails when people wear both masks and sunglasses. "In this situation, all of the key facial information is lost, but I am convinced that we can overcome the weakness in the future," said Huang.
