Federal agencies eye behavioral, facial recognition tech

Federal agencies eye behavioral, facial recognition tech

WASHINGTON—The Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are considering the use of behavioral and facial recognition technology for law enforcement. Both agencies are trying to evaluate the present state of the systems to determine how useful they will be.

DHS is beginning a project that will scan video of people moving through the Kennewick, Wash., Toyota Center and compare their images to mock profiles of volunteers, news organizations report.

“What we’d like to see is how well the current facial-recognition systems perform,” Patricia Wolfhope, DHS Science & Technology Directorate program manager, told GovTech. “The only way to do that is to compare the data we are going to get from this data collection with the facial-recognition algorithms.”

The FBI invited written proposals in an Oct. 30 notice announcing it was interested in the sophisticated technology to scan crime-scene footage.

“The FBI is currently undertaking a major issue study of video and digital image processing and video/digital image analytic capabilities to identify current capabilities, assess gaps, and develop a roadmap for the FBI’s future video analytics architecture,” the notice says.

According to news reports, the Boston Marathon bombings have led law enforcement to invest in sophisticated video surveillance technology.