NEC NEOFACE: Facial Recognition – Products & Services

Surveillance Enhanced

Security threats are a growing concern at international and national levels, as well as within commercial organizations. With the threats to international borders, governments are ordering reviews of their security arrangements at airports, seaports and public transportation hubs. Law enforcement agencies are also charged with identifying wanted individuals in public places. In addition, security and facilities managers need to keep known undesirables and unknowns off their premises, as well as identifying returning VIPs to a facility.

NEC’s NeoFace Watch solution is specifically designed to integrate with existing surveillance systems by extracting faces in real time from existing video surveillance systems and matching against a watch list of individuals. When the system identifies an individual of interest from the watch list, it raises an alert, so appropriate actions can be taken rapidly to reduce the risk of public safety threats.

Independent testing confirms that NEC’s NeoFace technology provides the fastest, most accurate matching capability and is the most resistant to variants in ageing, race and pose angle.

NeoFace Watch helps reduce the risk of security threats by integrating face matching technology with video surveillance input while checking individuals against known photographic watch lists, and producing real-time alerts.

What It Delivers:
• High performance matching capability with multiple camera feeds
• Detection of persons of interest on premises in real-time
• Real-time alerts to be acted upon as necessary
• Suitable for the detection of both undesirables and VIPs
• Ability to process live and archived video images

The NeoFace Watch application is a Web-based thin client with an easy-to-use user interface. It is unobtrusive and requires no operator interaction. The application can be easily customized and integrated into existing surveillance systems and operational processes.

How It Works:
• A surveillance camera integrated with NEC’s NeoFace Watch biometric technology is installed in suitable pinch points.
• Faces of individuals are captured and extracted from the video feed and quality matched in real-time. NeoFace Watch software is able to process multiple camera feeds extracting and matching thousands of faces per minute.
• NeoFace Watch matches faces from video surveillance against the appropriate watch list databases and raise real-time alerts.

NEC NeoFace technology’s strength lies in its tolerance of poor quality. Highly compressed surveillance videos and images, previously considered of little to no value, are now usable evidence and leading to higher rates of positive identification. With its proven ability to match low resolution facial images, including images with resolutions down to just 24 pixels between the eyes, NEC’s NeoFace technology outperforms all other face recognition systems in matching accuracy. While searching of latent fingerprints at crime scenes is standard, NEC’s NeoFace facial recognition technology can now positively identify latent photos with high degree of accuracy.

The human face plays an important role in our social interaction, conveying people’s identity. Using the human face as a key to security, biometric face recognition technology has received significant attention in the past several years due to its potential for a wide variety of applications in both law enforcement and non-law enforcement.

As compared with other biometrics systems using fingerprint/palmprint and iris, face recognition has distinct advantages because of its non-contact process. Face images can be captured from a distance without touching the person being identified, and the identification does not require interacting with the person. In addition, face recognition serves the crime deterrent purpose because face images that have been recorded and archived can later help identify a person.

Over the past decades, NEC has concentrated on developing face recognition methods within the framework of biometric security systems and is now applying face recognition technology to other markets. NEC’s Face Recognition technology achieved the highest performance evaluation in the Face In Video Evaluation (FIVE) 2017 performed by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Tecnology (NIST).  Moreover, NEC’s technology took first place for the fourth consecutive time following the Face Recognition Vendor Test (FRVT) 2013, the 2009 Multiple Biometric Grand Challenge (MBGC 2009) and 2010-2011 Multiple Biometrics Evaluation (MBE 2010-2011).

NEC’s face recognition technology can be implemented as a functionally independent application, or seamlessly integrated into new or existing biometric security solutions by system integrators and solution providers.

Fast & Accurate Face Recognition

• GLVQ based multiple-matching face detection
• Combination of eye-zone extraction and facial recognition
• Recognition based on neural network technology
• Short processing time, high recognition rate
• Recognition regardless of vantage point and facial changes (glasses, beard, and expression)

Reliable matching

• Optimal results through Adaptive Regional Blend Matching (ARBM) technology
• Extraction of similar facial areas
• Identification and authentication based on individual facial features
• Easy adaptation to existing IT systems
• Flexible integration into many types of video monitoring systems
• 1:n matching
• Simple connection to NEC AFIS
• Supporting diverse graphic and video formats as well as live cameras

Diverse Application Areas

NEC’s biometrics face recognition process has a highly diverse range of applications, extending from crime-fighting, border control, to access control for sensitive areas.

Generalized Matching Face Detection Method (GMFD)

NEC’s face recognition technology utilizes the GMFD method that provides high speed and high accuracy for facial detection and facial features extraction. The main logic for facial recognition within GMFD is a modified Generalized Learning Vector Quantization (GLVQ) algorithm, which searches and selects face area candidates after the generation of potential eye pairs. GLVQ is based on a neural network and is not easily fooled by attempts to conceal identity via the usage of caps, hats, sunglasses, etc.

Perturbation Space Method (PSM)

NEC has developed the PSM algorithm that converts two-dimensional images (e.g., photographs) into three-dimensions (such a process is called “Morphing”). The three-dimensional representations of the head are then rotated in both the left-to-right and up-and-down directions. Further processing applies differing illumination across the face, which greatly enhanced the chances of a query “faceprint” for matching against its true mate from the database.

Adaptive Regional Blend Matching (ARBM) Method

Thanks to the PSM algorithm, the general range of facial poses and illumination has ceased to present major problems. However, the range of variation of different facial parts is still a challenge.

To reduce the impact of adverse local changes (e.g., varying facial expression caused by smiling and blinking eyes, and intentional changes caused by the wearing of caps, hats and glasses), NEC’s face recognition technology utilizes the ABRM algorithm, which reduces the impact of such local changes during the matching process. The minimization of the local changes guarantees the overall face recognition accuracy.