How Well Can Algorithms Recognize Your Masked Face? | WIRED
▻https://www.wired.com/story/algorithms-recognize-masked-face
Facial-recognition algorithms from Los Angeles startup TrueFace are good enough that the US Air Force uses them to speed security checks at base entrances. But CEO Shaun Moore says he’s facing a new question: How good is TrueFace’s technology when people are wearing face masks?
“It’s something we don’t know yet because it’s not been deployed in that environment,” Moore says. His engineers are testing their technology on masked faces and are hurriedly gathering images of masked faces to tune their machine-learning algorithms for pandemic times.
Some vendors and users of facial recognition say the technology works well enough on masked faces. “We can identify a person wearing a balaclava, or a medical mask and a hat covering the forehead,” says Artem Kuharenko, founder of NtechLab, a Russian company whose technology is deployed on 150,000 cameras in Moscow. He says that the company has experience with face masks through contracts in southeast Asia, where masks are worn to curb colds and flu. US Customs and Border Protection, which uses facial recognition on travelers boarding international flights at US airports, says its technology can identify masked faces.
But Anil Jain, a professor at Michigan State University who works on facial recognition and biometrics, says such claims can’t be easily verified. “Companies can quote internal numbers, but we don’t have a trusted database or evaluation to check that yet,” says. “There’s no third-party validation.”
Early in March, China’s SenseTime, which became the world’s most valuable AI startup in part through providing face recognition to companies and government agencies, said it had upgraded its product for controlling access to buildings and workplaces to work with face masks. The software attends to facial features left uncovered, such as eyes, eyebrows, and the bridge of the nose, a spokesperson said. The US restricted sales to SenseTime and other Chinese AI companies last year for allegedly supplying technology used to oppress Uighur Muslims in China’s northwest.
Reports from China of the systems’ effectiveness with masks are mixed. One Beijing resident told WIRED she appreciated the convenience of not having to remove her mask to use Alipay, China’s leading mobile payments network, which has updated its facial-recognition system. But Daniel Sun, a Gartner analyst also in Beijing, says he has had to step out of crowds to pull down his mask to use facial recognition for payments. Still, he believes facial recognition will continue to grow in usage, perhaps helped by interest in more hygienic, touch-free transactions. “I don’t think Covid-19 will stop the increase in usage of this technology in China,” Sun says.