The Pros of AI Facial Recognition

AI facial recognition is often depicted in media as big brother (i.e. government) watching your every move. With many myths and misconceptions about facial recognition and it’s capabilities, user scenarios need to be addressed to understand where and how the technology can benefit both businesses and consumers. By better understanding this technology and facial recognition’s benefits, people can make more informed decisions.

AI Facial Recognition Technology Misconceptions

No technology can be immediately considered good or bad technology; it is all based on how people make use of it. The same can be said for facial recognition technology.

Those who argue that facial recognition is “bad” will often associate it with issues of personal freedom and an invasion of privacy, especially in countries with totalitarian governments that will exert stringent public monitoring controls to enforce control.

This isn’t to say that facial recognition technology can’t be abused in the free world. Similar to the advent of the internet, along with internet advertising, online media, and the rise of social media; the newness of technological advances may seem daunting at first and will face stages where they are largely seen as “bad.” Yet as time progresses, the pros of these technologies shine through to become essential parts of many advanced economies, diminishing the fears associated with new technologies. This holds true for AI facial recognition technology as well.

Benefits of AI Facial Recognition Technology

AI facial recognition is one of the most secure and fastest biometric identity verification solutions on the market. Here are five of the top benefits from adding AI face recognition to your business today.

1. Increased safety and security for businesses
2. Enhanced protection from identity theft
3. Higher accuracy and speed
4. Ease of installation (flexibility and scalability)
5. Improved productivity

Now let’s take a closer look at each of the benefits of AI Facial Recognition.

Increased safety and security for businesses

For businesses, biometric facial recognition systems can be used for security access control and surveillance, helping companies protect their properties and assets. For employees and customers, the safeguarding of personal assets in either the real world or digital domains helps increase the safety of those involved in businesses using AI facial recognition identity verification.

Enhanced protection from identity theft

Biometric data technologies also contribute to protecting your identity. The risk of identity theft is reduced when your face features are used for identity verification as part of a 2-factor authentication system, rather than relying solely on a government-issued ID that can be stolen, such as a passport, ID card, or driver’s license.

Fortunately, CyberLink’s FaceMe® is extremely secure, having achieved a perfect iBeta's Advanced Level 2 Anti-Spoofing Test score, ensuring that 3D masks, 2D photos, and deepfake videos could not fool the AI-enhanced facial recognition technology.

Higher accuracy and speed

AI facial recognition technology allows businesses an accurate, secure, and fast means of recognizing individuals in a crowd. By using a solution such as FaceMe® Security, companies can easily clock-in employees as they enter the office, or grant only authorized personnel access to select rooms or buildings.

Additionally, CyberLink’s FaceMe® has achieved a 99.83% accuracy rating in industry recognized NIST FRTE 1:1 face verification testing, with a less than one-in-a-million chance of incorrectly matching an individual.

Ease of installation (flexibility and scalability)

CyberLink’s FaceMe® is very easy to implement, use, and scale, capable of being tailored for various scenarios of all sizes. FaceMe® SDK enables partners to add facial recognition to their products, such as access control biometric readers, robotics, and more. FaceMe® Platform enables organizations to deploy APP’s with facial recognition to customer smartphones, tablets, and PCs. For video surveillance, FaceMe® Security is a turnkey software solution already integrated with leading VMS brands including Genetec, Milestone, Network Optix, Axis and Hanwha Vision.

Compatible with a wide variety of operating systems including Windows, Linux, Android, iOS, and others, FaceMe®’s degree of flexibility and scalability has made it easier than ever for organizations to upgrade to smart surveillance or smart access control systems without incurring big costs.

Improved productivity

By using a person’s facial features for verification, facial recognition-based systems cut down on the need for keys, fobs, and ID cards, all of which can be easily forgotten, lost or stolen. Facial recognition access control is also more convenient than fingerprint or iris scanning biometric data recognition technology, which requires users to verify identity one person at a time.

Facial recognition time and attendance systems, cut down the long check-in/out lines during rush hours. The systems can also accurately compile employee attendance records and simplify payroll.

The banking, financial service, and insurance (BFSI) businesses are another segment that benefits from facial recognition as part of a rigorous eKYC (electronic Know You Customer) system.. With AI facial recognition identity verification technology, these industries are able to comply with anti-money laundering regulations and safeguard customer investments with ease.

What are the Main Concerns with Facial Recognition?

Although facial recognition is a powerful and efficient method of identity verification, there are some common concerns that businesses may face before investing in this technology:

1. Legal and privacy concerns
2. Data breaches
3. Computational requirements/costs

Let’s look at each of these possible concerns in-depth:

Legal and privacy concerns

Probably the most common concern is that facial recognition systems store people’s biometric data information and track their activity. Data privacy laws and regulations (including GDPR, CCPA, BIPA, and LGPD), consider biometric information to be personal information and thus have installed strict requirements to safeguard personal privacy.

Under these regulatory laws, consumer data gathered by facial recognition systems can only be stored with consent and must be protected and allowed access/deletion rights just like any other form of stored digital data used by businesses today.

In order to stay compliant with these privacy laws, FaceMe® provides customers with these critical features:

1. Active Facial Recognition: When a user’s face takes up more than 25% of the screen view, the system will ask if the user agrees to have their face data extracted. FaceMe® will only collect, analyze, and store this data when the user nods their head as a form of consent.
2. Right to Erasure (AKA, Right to be Forgotten): FaceMe® also provides users with the right to delete their information upon request whenever they desire.
3. Right to Data Portability: FaceMe® provides users the right to export their data whenever they desire.

For more information on privacy protection regulations in the United States, please see our white paper Responsibly Using Facial Recognition in the U.S.

Data breaches

Individuals have realized that digital technologies are naturally susceptible to data breaches from hackers and identity thieves. Although this is a reasonable concern, steps can be taken to significantly reduce the risk of such attacks.

CyberLink encourages customers to always keep their data protected by all reasonable means, taking necessary procedures such as keeping their software and underlying systems up to date, and regularly safeguarding their commitment to user access policies. This concern is not limited to facial recognition, as it is the same concern with regards to bank accounts, credit cards, and social security info being stolen.

Computational requirements/costs

Some may worry that facial recognition technology has large computational requirements to run such advanced software. Although it is true that spending more can reap the benefits of faster processing, it is recognized that this may not be feasible for everyone, which is why FaceMe® is designed to be scalable.

In many cases, customers can still use FaceMe® with only a compact smart device, another benefit of AI facial recognition. The use of a connected or AIoT/IoT device with a built-in or attached camera is enough to run FaceMe®.

There are many deployment options facilitated by FaceMe® SDK for business needs of all sizes. Developers can enable GPU acceleration, utilizing OpenVino, NVIDIA Jetson, ARM, and more to speed up deep-learning algorithms. Check our FaceMe® SDK System Requirements for more information.

Legal considerations when using facial recognition technology

There has been a growing concern regarding facial recognition systems storing data, both in the form of photos and recorded movements. Although it is true that cameras facilitating facial recognition have the potential to capture and store data on associated computer equipment, companies using such technologies are still obligated to comply with certain rules and regulations that help safeguard individual privacy and allow users to request data deletion.

Some of these data privacy laws and regulations that biometric technology companies must adhere to include GDPR, CCPA, BIPA, and LGPD, as these guidelines consider biometric information to be personal information. Due to these institutions and their laws, facial recognition templates fall under these regulations, as would fingerprints or iris scans. Indeed, these issues are complex and regionally dependent, but they are nothing that companies considering facial recognition technology cannot handle.

CyberLink stresses the importance of taking the time to consider which type of facial recognition is best for your company, receiving user consent where legally required, and being rigorous in protecting such data and applying security software updates.

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