Technology Trends

I guess it was just a matter of time before someone thought about using DNA to identify robbers. According to two short articles from the The Telegraph and The Register, a security company based in Wales, U.K., has designed a spray that can mark the skin and the clothes of intruders. The i-powder contained in the spray carries a “uniquely-traceable DNA code” registered to the owner and can be easily detected for several weeks. And it seems to be efficient, with recent trials by several police forces resulting in 100 per cent conviction rates. But are these sprays safe for their owners if they have to give a verbal warning to the intruders before using them? Read more…

First, let’s look at the Telegraph.

Police are testing a new weapon against burglars — a spray that leaves indelible marks on intruders, making it far simpler to catch and convict them.

Each batch of spray has a durable red dye and a powder containing strands of DNA, in effect a “signature” that can irrefutably link a burglar to the scene of the crime. The stain left by the spray cannot be removed from clothes or skin for several days.

These sprays are being built and sold by Redweb Security and here are some pictures of the devices.

Now, let’s look at the Register article.

Redweb supremo Clive Smith explained: “The key feature of our technology is that it irrefutably identifies a criminal with the scence of the crime. Each device containing i-powder is registered either to its owner or a precise location, and the unique DNA code contained within the substance remains detectable for several weeks. In this way, RedWeb presents law enforcement agencies with a weight of forensic evidence to assist in securing a conviction.”

Before buying or using one of these ‘alarm’ systems, you should read this list of Frequently Asked Questions. Some of the answers are really fun.

Can Guarda be used more than once? No, because the DNA in each alarm is unique, it can only be used once. If Guarda was used in a legitimate emergency, RedWeb Security will replace your Guarda for a small fee.

Can I register it to my business so all my employees can use it? Unfortunately no, because a sole individuals information is registered to the unique code and agrees to it’s proper operation and use.

If it is registered to me can my spouse or friends use it? See above.

What if it gets on my customers? RedWeb Security recommends that Sentry should not be deployed during opening times.

I would really like to know how many systems will be sold annually in the U.K.

Sources: Jessica Berry, The Telegraph, July 24, 2005; Lester Haines, The Register, July 25, 2005; and RedWeb Security web site

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• DNA
  
  
• Forensics
  
  
• Innovation
  
  
• Police
  

And remember that comments are no longer accepted here. If you want to tell me something about this post, please go to the bottom right of this page and send me an e-mail.

Imagine someone imitating your signature or changing the dollar amount on a check. How will you detect it? Things have changed since the days when Sherlock Holmes used his legendary magnifying glass. Today, crime investigators specialized in forensic science are using chromatography to identify different inks. But a new approach is described in this article by chemists and forensic scientists from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Quantico, Virginia. This new process, called capillary electrophoresis (CE), which permits to separate the ink into its different pigments, is automated and fast. And results can be stored in a database for future searches. Read more…

Here is the introduction of this article from the FBI.

Evidence from handwritten notes has been a hallmark of crime detection for a long time — but forensic technology has just made the process that much more sophisticated.

That’s good news for investigators of insurance fraud, currency counterfeiting, tax evasion, and insider trading violations.

Then the unknown author points at two articles published in the July 2005 issue of Forensic Science Communications. These articles are generically named “Forensic Analysis of Ballpoint Pen Inks Using Capillary Electrophoresis.”

Here are the links to these two articles, one about black inks, and another one about blue inks.

Why different articles on different colors? Black and blue inks contain dye formulations that have different properties, which requires different methods to separate the dye components.

Here is a general description of this capillary electrophoresis (CE) process.

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) has recently been used for ink analysis. A minute volume of ink (nanoliters) is injected in a narrow silica capillary filled with a buffer solution. Electrical current is then applied to the capillary to separate the ink into its components. Each component passes a photodiode array detector, which records an ultraviolet-visible spectrum. The process is automated, fast, and results can be stored electronically allowing the development of a searchable reference library. This process also detects non-dye additives in the ink that potentially can be used as identifiers.

The CE technique is largely detailed in the two articles mentioned above. But, if you’re not a chemist, I doubt you’ll understand the contents. However, the abstracts are written in plain English. Here is the one about black inks.

Capillary electrophoresis with ultraviolet-visible photodiode array detection (190–600 nm) was studied as an alternative separation and identification tool for forensic ink examination. Two different buffer systems were designed to analyze dye compounds in various black ballpoint pen ink formulations. Results were compared to thin-layer chromatography experiments to evaluate the sensitivity and performance of capillary electrophesis.

Because of the small volume necessary for analysis, the remaining solution could be further processed using current law enforcement procedures for confirmation.

This technique is not limited to ballpoint pen inks and can be applied to food dyes, textile dyes, and ink-jet dyes. Here is an example taken from the article about blue inks.

Experiments have shown that food dyes, textile dyes, and ink-jet dyes can be separated and identified using the anionic and/or cationic dye capillary electrophoresis methods. Acid Yellow 23 (also known as Yellow Food Dye No. 5 or Tartrazine) was identified in a boiled-down sample of Mountain Dew soda (PepsiCo, Chicago, Illinois) using the anionic capillary electrophoresis method (Egan et al. 2005).

Finally, if you want to learn more about how the FBI is putting forensic science at work, you can read its Handbook of Forensic Services (PDF format, 181 pages, 2.70 MB).

Sources: Federal Bureau of Investigation, July 5, 2005; and various FBI web sites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Chemistry
  


• Forensics
  


• Miscellaneous
  


• Police
  

Researchers at the Center for Computational Research (CCR) of State University of New York at Buffalo have developed a visualization software which allows to simulate traffic in three dimensions. The results can be displayed to urban planners or audiences at public hearings, showing them how a proposed project will affect traffic in their neighborhoods. This traffic-simulation software, Streetscenes, is also used to reconstruct street accidents. The software analyzes the data involved to compute the unknown variables, such as vehicle speeds and changes in velocities, and delivers its results as 3D animations which can be shown to juries, lawyers and insurance companies. Read more…

Here is the introduction of this news release.

Working in partnerships with companies and agencies, the Center for Computational Research (CCR) in the University at State University of New York at Buffalo has developed software that applies these state-of-the-art technologies to simulate traffic at [several sites in the U.S.]

But let’s look at how this software allows people to visualize how a car accident occurred.

The result is Streetscenes, a traffic-simulation software package developed by Henrique Bucher, Ph.D., CCR computational scientist, that allows audiences at public hearings, town-board reviews and boardroom presentations an unprecedented ability to visualize how proposed projects will affect traffic on their street and in their neighborhoods.

It’s interesting to note the address of Bucher’s website: cplusplusguru.com.

Below are two small images illustrating the concept of accident reconstruction (Credit: CCR).

You can find additional images on these specific pages, Visualization at CCR, some Visualization Projects and in particular the Accident Reconstruction project. The two images above come from this last page.

And here are links to two animations in QuickTime and Windows Media Player formats realized with Streetscenes.

As a result of its collaboration with CCR, TVGA Consultants in Elma is able to provide high-end, three-dimensional accident visualization services to its clients, which include attorneys and insurance companies.

“CCR’s expertise allowed TVGA to transform these calculations into a state-of-the-art 3D animation, thus realistically animating the story that used to be told to juries through storyboards,” said Haseeb Ghumman, who heads TVGA’s Accident Reconstruction Plus division.

You’ll find additional videos on the site of Accident Reconstruction Plus, a division of TVGA Consultants, which has an interesting motto, “Bringing Accident Reconstruction Into the 21st Century.”

Sources: State University of New York at Buffalo, June 3, 2005; and various websites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Police
  


• Supercomputers
  


• Transportation
  


• Vision and Visualization Apps
  

According to RFID Journal, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is about to launch a pilot program to track 1,800 inmates using RFID devices. If the test is successful, the technology will be deployed for the 18,000 inmates of the L.A. county jails. With this system, inmates carry a wrist bracelet which issues a signal every two seconds and is caught by RFID readers installed everywhere in the prison. Officers and staff also carry a RFID device attached to their belts. And a central server keeps track in real time of the position of all prisoners and guardians. Besides tracking locations, the system also intends to reduce violence within the jail and to avoid escapes. If this system works as its promoters think, the potential market to equip all federal, state and county jails in the U.S. exceeds $1 billion. Read more…

Tracking prisoners is a great use for RFID tags. If prisons trust RFID technology it’s a wonder why more businesses don’t utilize it. Most still rely on the use of barcode scanners to maintain their inventory records by creating barcodes with barcode software and then printing them out on special barcode printers. One day, the benefits of RFID will most likely overwhelm the use of barcodes in businesses. Until, the debate whether RFID or barcodes is better will continue.

The technology used for this program, the TSI Prism system, is developed and sold by Technology Systems International, Inc. (TSI), a division of Alanco Technologies, Inc.

Now, let’s see briefly what RFID Journal says about the system.

Where the TSI Prism system is in use, every inmate is issued a bracelet when he is processed. Approximately the size of a divers’ watch, the bracelet includes an active RFID tag as well as a bar code if the jail system chooses to use it.

The RFID bracelet sends out a signal every two seconds to RFID readers deployed throughout the facility. The readers send that data to the system’s control center. Officers wear RFID devices similar to the inmates’ bracelets, but have their device attached to their belts. A red button is included with the device for officers to press in an emergency. If that button is pressed, or if an inmate enters a restricted area, an alarm in the control room will alert officers there.

With this system, guards will know if a staff member is in danger, or when an inmate is going off limits. But the program has other goals.

The RFID prison management system is intended to have a three-fold function. It ensures inmates do not escape by issuing an alarm if the bracelet approaches the jail perimeter; it reduces violence by allowing officers to monitor who is congregating with whom; and it allows for administrative functions such as tracking where an inmate is when they are needed.

TSI adds that the system also can reduce costs by eliminating headcounts throughout the day or by reducing insurance costs for prison owners.

For financial information, you can read this Alanco’s press release.

Alanco’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Robert Kauffman, commented, “This LASD contract highlights a related new market for TSI PRISM in addition to the approximately $1 Billion potential U.S. Federal and State prison market. With approximately 700,000 inmates currently incarcerated nationwide, the potential U.S. County Jail market for TSI PRISM is in the range of $500 - $700 million.”

The company doesn’t say if this number represents a yearly market or a total amount.

Sources: Claire Swedberg, RFID Journal, May 16, 2005; and various websites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Police
  
  
• Privacy
  
  
• RFID
  
  
• Security
  

In “Courtrooms could host virtual crime scenes,” New Scientist writes about a software called Instant Scene Modeler (iSM), which can build an interactive 3D model from a few hundred frames of a scene shot by a dual-head camera developed by MD Robotics. Users, who can be lawyers, judges, jurors or detectives, can zoom on any object in the 3D model. Other usages of this gun-shaped camera and its associated software include remote explorations of mines, or even other planets such as Mars. The software works by identifying common features in the sequence of images taken by the special camera. And it has already been used to pilot Aibo, Sony’s robotic dog. Read more…

Here are the opening paragraphs of the New Scientist article.

Lawyers, judges and jurors could soon explore crime scenes in three dimensions in the courtroom, in the same way that video gamers explore virtual worlds.

Software called instant Scene Modeler (iSM) re-creates an interactive 3D model from a few hundred frames of a scene captured by a special video camera. Users can zoom in on any object in the 3D model, measure distances between objects and look at scenes from different angles.

Currently investigators try to recreate the scene of the crime in court by sifting through photos or sketches, but this approach is limited and time-consuming, explains Piotr Jasiobedzki, iSM’s project manager at MDRobotics in Toronto, Canada. The software could also assist detectives during their investigations.

Here is how this works.

The system uses a gun-shaped stereo-camera that consists of two ordinary video cameras aligned at a set distance from each other. This enables the depth of the captured scene to be calculated at every point, just as a pair of eyes gauges distances. (Image credit: MD Robotics, iSM_InfoSheet (PDF format, 1 page, 1.25 MB)

And here are links to two animations from MD Robotics showing a crime scene sequence (4.2 MB) and a crime scene 3D model (4.3 MB).

The amazing thing about this software is that it automatically creates calibrated 3D models — and believe me, this is tricky.

iSM is different because it creates a virtual model of the scene that can then be explored from any angle. It does this by using a set of algorithms called SIFT (Scale Invariant Feature Transform) developed by David Lowe, computer vision expert at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada

SIFT very quickly identifies common features in sequential images, Lowe told New Scientist, allowing separate 3D images to be transformed into a virtual 3D world. The virtual world is rendered by a graphics gaming card inside an ordinary laptop or PC.

For more information about David Lowe’s work, you can read one of his latest papers, published by the International Journal of Computer Vision, “Distinctive Image Features from Scale-Invariant Keypoints” (Volume 60, Number 2, November 2004, Pages 91-110). Here is a link to the abstract and here is the beginning of it.

This paper presents a method for extracting distinctive invariant features from images, which can be used to perform reliable matching between different images of an object or scene. The features are invariant to image scale and rotation, and are shown to provide robust matching across a a substantial range of affine distortion, addition of noise, change in 3D viewpoint, and change in illumination. The features are highly distinctive, in the sense that a single feature can be correctly matched with high probability against a large database of features from many images.

Finally, if you’re a specialist in this field, here is a link to the full paper (PDF format, 28 pages, 501 KB).

Sources: Celeste Biever, NewScientist.com, March 10, 2005; and various websites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Forensics
  


• Military Applications
  


• Police
  


• Software
  


• Space
  


• Vision and Visualization Applications
  

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has unveiled its fourth generation of its Truck Stopping Technology since 2001. A small device mounted on a truck can be remotely controlled by law enforcement officials if they suspect the truck is hijacked and being used for a terrorist action. They’ll use a handheld controller to activate the device which will deploy the truck’s air brakes and bring the truck to a complete stop before attacking a nuclear plant or other sensitive facilities. The LLNL engineers also have developed antennas which can be put on sensitive buildings and which will activate the device if trucks seem to come too close. These devices cost about $800 apiece, but cannot be mounted on trucks before some changes in legislation, in California and elsewhere. Read more…

Here are the key points of the LLNL announcement.

The Laboratory, part of the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, today unveiled its latest version of the technology, a remote-controlled device that brings trucks to a screeching halt. The device was commissioned by and created for the California Highway Patrol to prevent tankers and other hijacked vehicles from becoming “bombs on wheels.”

By enabling remote control technology, the device can be used to protect buildings such as government facilities, power plants and stations, and other areas where sensitive materials or critical infrastructures are housed.

This technology has been developed by David McCallen (short bio), diector of the LLNL Engineering Technology Center for Complex Distributed Systems with the help of outside consultants.

How does this fourth incarnation of truck stopping technology work?

The remote controlled variation works much like a child’s radio-controlled toy. In a roadside emergency, patrolmen would use a hand-held controller to activate the device, which now sits behind the cab of a tractor trailer, to deploy the air brakes and bring the car to a screeching halt.

Laboratory researchers have taken the remote technology one step further by using a system of antennas that could be placed around various buildings. If a runaway truck tried to crash through the gates, the antennas, operating on a continuous signal, would activate the technology once the truck passed by, preventing any attack.

Press releases need to be optimistic, but will this technology be really deployed one day?

The devices cost approximately $800 apiece. The Laboratory, California Highway Patrol (CHP) and a commercial truck company already are testing an earlier impact version of the device on California highways. To have the devices automatically equipped on all commercial transportation vehicles will require legislation.

For more information about this technology, you can visit the Truck Stopping Device page at LLNL, which describes the history of the project and contains images and links to videos.

Sources: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) news release, February 22, 2005; and various LLNL websites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Energy
  


• Engineering
  


• Police
  


• Transportation
  


• Wireless
  

In this short article, eWEEK writes that the next generation of biosensors will consist of small holograms costing only fractions of a cent. Prototypes developed by a U.K. company, aptly named Smart Holograms, include contact lenses that monitor glucose levels or thin badges that detect alcohol levels. Not only these holograms used as sensors will be cheap to produce, they’ll also require less training for nurses or police officers. This is because these holograms can be designed to show results graphically, such as morphing into an image of a green car if someone subjected to breath analysis is sober and can drive. Read more…

Here are selected quotes from the eWEEK article.

Prototypes have already been made for contact lenses that monitor glucose levels, thin badges that detect alcohol levels, and sticks that can tell, instantly, if milk has spoiled or become contaminated. The technology promises to be quicker and cheaper than tests used today. It will also require less training, because the hologram itself can be designed to show results graphically.

A test showing that fuel has been contaminated with trace amounts of water reads “dry” or “wet.” In a breath alcohol test intended for police offices, suspects breathe onto tiny cards that either show a green automobile or a red X, establishing whether a person is sober enough to drive.

This technology looks cheap and promising, according to Chris Lowe, a professor at Cambridge University, and co-founder of Smart Holograms.

One advantage of the technology is that each hologram costs only a fraction of a cent to produce. Another is the wide applicability. The holograms can detect pH to four decimal places and chemical concentrations of hormones and other biologically important substances. The samples tested do not need to be pure: The holograms can work in milk or even in stool samples from newborns, said Lowe.

Now, let’s turn to the company itself to see how holograms can be turned into biosensors. Here are some explanations provided on this page whose title is “Creating a Sensor Hologram.”

Sensors that rely on the ability of “smart” polymers to swell or contract when in contact with specific biological reagents, chemicals or physical forces, sometimes called volume holograms, are of significant interest. For example, bright wavelength changes produced by holograms fabricated in hydrophilic polymers offer immediate advantages as a facile and reliable means of measuring volume changes. Hologram gratings capable of exhibiting spectral effects from volume changes need to be of the so-called “Denisyuk” type.

For more information about Yuri Denisyuk, you can read this brief history of the holography.

[The figure above] illustrates the experimental set-up used to create Denisyuk-type holograms. Laser light returning from a plane mirror creates a classical standing wave pattern of nodes and antinodes or interference fringes spaced half a wavelength apart. The standing wave pattern is recorded in the polymer matrix that has been coated on a plastic substrate or glass microscope slide. After a conventional photographic development step, the fringe pattern is represented as a distribution of ultrafine (<20 nm diameter) grains of silver.

Is this technology as accurate as told by its promoters? We’ll see. However, it really seems it has a serious cost advantage over current technologies, so it has the potential to become widely used in a few years.

Sources: M.L. Baker, eWEEK, February 19, 2005; Smart Holograms website

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Biotechnology
  
  
• Holograms
  
  
• Medicine
  
  
• Nanotechnology
  
  
• Police
  
  
• Sensors
  

Engineers from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have designed a phone which contains a compact radiation detector, making easy for police forces to check for radioactive material hidden in large cities. In “Cellphone sniffs out dirty bombs,” New Scientist writes that the phone measures continuously the level of radiation around it and transmits it to a central computer via an always-on Internet connection. The phone will also send time and location information gathered from its GPS unit. When these phones are deployed around the U.S., they will form a radiation monitoring network dubbed the RadNet. Such phones should be available for about $1,000 in a few months first to military personnel or police officers, then to U.S. Postal service personnel or delivery service workers. It should take more time before you can buy one yourself at a Wal-Mart store. Read more…

Here are the opening paragraphs from the New Scientist article.

A smart phone that can detect radiation may soon be helping the police to find the raw materials for radioactive “dirty bombs” before they are deployed. The phones will glean data as the officers carrying them go about their daily business, and the information will be used to draw up maps of radiation that will expose illicit stores of nuclear material.

The detector is the brainchild of engineers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California, US, who developed it in response to the rise in illicit trafficking of radioactive materials (see graphic). Customs officers at ports and airports already wear pagers that detect radiation. But any radioactive material not picked up by border controls can be hidden in towns and cities, with little chance that it will be found.

And here is the solution proposed by the LLNL engineers.

Now LLNL engineers funded by the US Department of Homeland Security have devised a way to tackle the problem. They have turned a multi-function internet cellphone into a wireless sensor that will feed data into a new type of radiation monitoring network that they are calling a RadNet.

The phone transmits radiation readings continuously over an always-on internet connection to a central computer. A GPS receiver in the phone labels the data with a time and location, allowing it to be used to build up a radiation map of a particular area.

How much will cost such a device?

The challenge for the LLNL engineers was to devise a radiation sensor cheap enough to make the project viable. “It’s relatively straightforward to make a $10,000 radiation detection device that works well,” says project leader Bill Craig at LLNL’s Radiation Detection Center (RDC). “But the target price of these units is $1000. That’s the phone, the whole thing.”

This paper from the RDC, “Compact Radiation Detector and Global-Positioning-System Unit in a Cell Phone,” gives additional details about these phones (the above illustration comes from this paper).

New-generation gamma-ray sensors and a global-positioning-system (GPS) module are built into a cell phone. The device uses pixelated cadmium zinc telluride (CdZnTe, often abbreviated CZT) detectors coupled with an ultra-low-power readout with moderate energy resolution. The device requires no cooling and is battery-powered (24 to 48 hours on a single charge).

Because the poorer-quality sections of the CZT crystal are left unconnected, we can use less-expensive, commercial-grade detector materials. The material is literally “sliced and diced” from the ingot, with no material selection or individual detector testing required. This approach dramatically lowers the cost of each detector, which costs less than $350 now and will be less than $100 when the device is mass-produced.

Let’s return to New Scientist for more details about the detectors.

Craig’s team cut costs by compromising on the quality of the cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) semiconductor crystals that lie at the heart of the detectors. When a gamma-ray photon strikes the CZT it knocks a number of electrons out of position, producing a cascade of electron-hole pairs. A voltage applied across the crystal turns these into a current whose strength depends on the energy of the incident photons. This in turn allows the radionuclide that generated the gamma rays — caesium-137 or cobalt-60, for example — to be identified.

The reason why these detectors are relatively inexpensive is thta the team used cheap crystals.

They divide the crystal into 64 separate sensing “pixels” in which each pixel acts as a detector on its own. They then simply discard the output from the 10% to 15% of pixels that do not work because of defects. The team has found that by using four of these crystals in each phone, they can achieve reasonable sensitivity.

Let’s move back to the RDC paper to check for future uses of these phones.

The device reports its health when reporting its data; system maintenance consists of swapping out a malfunctioning unit in much the same way pager or cell phone companies do. The only maintenance requirement is charging the battery periodically. Each device can be used as a programmable radiation alarm, personal dosimeter, search instrument, and analysis tool.

A central processing system monitors the data from the network of devices and provides additional sensitivity by tracking below-threshold alerts, correlating measurements from different detectors passing the same location at different times, and iteratively adjusting system thresholds to account for transient events.

Such devices are ideally suited for military personnel, Transportation Security Administration screeners, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents, U.S. Postal Service personnel, public safety personnel, delivery service workers, and even nuclear search teams.

For more information about nuclear security, you can visit the web sites of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and its Office of Nonproliferation Research and Engineering.

Sources: Jenny Hogan, New Scientist, December 9, 2004; and various web sites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Handhelds
  
  
• Networking
  
  
• Police
  
  
• Security
  
  
• Wireless
  

In the UK, where the recent Queen’s speech about national identity cards generated lots of — mostly negative — coverage, another potentially invasive technology is being tested with very few criticism. For example, several police departments are now testing a 3D biometric facial recognition software from Aurora, a company based near Northampton. The use of facial recognition “is rapidly becoming the third forensic science alongside fingerprints and DNA,” according to a police officer who talked to BBC News for “How your face could open doors.” The company claims its software is so sophisticated it can make the distinction between identical twins. And if the civil liberties groups continue to be neutral, this technology could also be deployed in airports or by private companies. Even banks are thinking to put cameras in their ATM machines to identify you. The good thing is that you will not have to remember your PIN. On the other hand, as with every new technology, is it safe for your privacy and is it possible to hack the system? Read more…

Here is the introduction from BBC News Magazine.

The ethical debate about identity cards has been reignited following the Queen’s Speech, but its facial recognition technology is being used in other areas. Police are hailing it as a forensic breakthrough and a new “foolproof” 3D version could eventually become a routine procedure at cash machines or workplaces.

Once the preserve of science fiction, biometric facial recognition has now become a reality. Despite its association with the controversy of identity cards, it is predicted to become part of everyday life.

But is the technology ready?

As companies become more security conscious, the process of having our faces scanned is set to become more commonplace. And new technology which can produce this in a more accurate 3D form could accelerate this trend

A firm which has developed the 3D software, Aurora, claims it is sophisticated enough to distinguish between identical twins.

The brave BBC reporter tested the software for us.

I underwent the procedure myself and it only took a few seconds. A camera used a near-infrared light to put a virtual mesh on my face 16 times. It merged these into one unique template and calculated all the measurements of my features.

Now, the real questions are to know if the technology gives accurate results and if it’s possible to hack the system.

The government’s biometric trials for passports and identity cards have reportedly experienced a 10% error rate in face recognition. The Home Office denies this and says that in any case its trials were only testing the procedures and the public response, not the technology.

Aurora claims its software eliminates these alleged errors. Founder Hugh Carr-Archer says: “We can’t say it’s 100% but we’ve done tests and have a zero failure rate.

According to the police, the 3D technology is still too expensive to be widely deployed, but it continues to use successfully 2D images.

It works by scanning an image of a suspect’s face - such as a CCTV picture taken from a crime scene or a drawing based on eye-witness accounts. This produces a 2D map of the face which marks attributes such as the distance between the eyes.

Then the computer uses an algorithm to compare the data of this face to thousands of others on a database of offenders - people who have ever been arrested or charged. Within seconds it lists the matches in order of relevance, just like a web search engine.

Of course, this technology is not approved by the justice and can’t be used in courts. But it’s used by the police to detect potential suspects, which says the technology is really effective.

The West Yorkshire Police says 70% of images searched have produced useful intelligence worth researching further, with two or three arrests a week as a result.

So what’s your opinion? Is this technology threatening our privacy or not? Do you like the idea to be filmed and having your image compared to millions of others just to get $50 at a cash machine? Post your comments below.

Sources: Tom Geoghegan, BBC News Magazine, November 25, 2004; and various websites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Forensics
  


• Police
  


• Privacy
  


• Security
  


• Visualization Applications