A first meeting of the INTERPOL Facial Expert Working Group brought together global figures in biometrics to begin the process of developing international facial recognition standards.
The two-day meeting (on October 14 and 15) gathered 24 technical and biometrics figures and examiners from 16 countries who produced a ‘best practice guide’ for the quality, format and transmission of images to be used in facial recognition. It will be circulated to all 190 INTERPOL member countries to serve as a guideline for improving the quality of images necessary for accurate and effective facial recognition.
INTERPOL reports that it is developing a facial image database with the support of Safran Morpho, the French biometrics product company. The database is expected to become operational in early 2015, and will enhance INTERPOL’s forensic capabilities as many crimes do not have hard evidence such as DNA or fingerprints to help identify suspects. The working group will meet twice a year and serve as INTERPOL’s advisory group in this biometric field.
Attending the working group meeting was Dr Joseph Atick, a veteran in the field of identity and biometrics and Chairman of the Identity Counsel International. In 2015, INTERPOL will host its first facial recognition symposium to increase awareness of facial recognition activities among member countries and to encourage the sharing of facial images with the new database.
