By Andy McCue, 11 December 2003 17:55
NEWS Internet banks in the UK and Europe are set to trial facial recognition technology in the New Year that will authenticate customers from their home PC instead of passwords or PIN numbers.
Participants in the trial will first 'enrol' their facial biometric, which will be stored either on the PC itself or on a smartcard. The customer can put their smartcard into a reader and this will verify their face using a web cam on the PC.
The trials are being run by facial biometric firm OmniPerception, which said there will be "major" trials early next year with internet banks in the UK, Spain, the Netherlands and Germany.
Martin Gates, marketing director at OmniPerception told silicon.com: "A number of banks in Europe are evaluating the technology."
He said the software generates a unique facial biometric and that it can detect attempts to fool the process by using video footage of a person or a model of a face.
"The number of permutations peoples' faces could have is mind-bogglingly large," he said. "There is plenty of scope for uniquely identifying each individual."
Gates would not reveal the names of the banks involved in the trials but said his company is working with Sharp on a secure smartcard that will store the facial biometric.
While facial recognition technology is undoubtedly far more secure than passwords or PIN numbers - which have come under scrutiny in recent weeks following security scares at several ecommerce sites - it remains to be seen whether the banks will be able to justify the high cost of implementing such security.
Graham Titterington, senior analyst at Ovum, said one of the main issues will be resistance from customers.
"A lot of people don't have web cams and I would guess that the software requirement is significant and probably not run too well on older PCs," he said. "It is the sort of thing that in five years time may work and it's not radically different from using a fingerprint reader."
Comments
There are 11 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
Who are they kidding? I have facial recognition running on my PC now. It is incredibly sensitive to environment, lighting, background etc and easily gives false results, either recognising people it should not or failing to recognise me when it is me!
This is more of th "Biometrics will solve all our security problems" fantasy!
I don't doubt they can show wonderful things in the laboratory, but making this work acceptably in the real world is another thing and will take years - even if consumers accept it, which is also improbable!
2. Marie Byrne
I can't see that this will be very successful. In principle it sounds great, until you consider that fact that not everyone has a cam-capable PC, i.e. an older one, also it smacks of 'Big Brother' type antics, which would seem to take away any privacy an individual has. If you want to access your bank account through the present 24-hour banking system in place almost everywhere, why not simply have extra security measures, perhaps extra passwords. The criteria in place at the moment is good, with a lot of questions which are asked randomly before you can access the site. But please, forget about Iris scanning or face recognition or indeed any other form of personal identification. It's all a bit too personal.
Regards
Marie Byrne
3. Karen Challinor
So from now on muggers need only arm themselves with a polaroid and photograph everyone leaving the bank ?
4. Brian Grainger
What bothers me about facial recognition software is false denial. If my face is different - say due to a black eye - or perhaps more seriously from a car crash - does that mean I cannot get at my cash?
5. Carole R
I am a face reader for a living, helping people and companies make the right choice with relationships and projects. What is the difference here on the pc between face and finger print recognition, sure the fingers is easier to use, easier to police, although, of course, as you would suspect, I am keen that the face is getting in the pic.....
Carole
6. anonymous
If an iris scanner can be fooled with a colour photo (as reported previously on silicon.com) I'm sure that the same is true of a web-cam.
7. Daniel Walsh
I cannot for the life of me understand why people have such a problem with Facial Biometrics. Everyone has a Face, and usually they have it with them at all times.
I certainly would prefer to have a Facial Biometric log me into my Internet Bank rather than the usual Security screening I go through every time I log on now.
8. Daniel Walsh
Just to let you know that we HAVE tested in the field, and YES the system does work.
I accept that there must be reasonable light and conditions for registration etc., but that is what ICAO are establishing as we speak. A standard!
9. Daniel Walsh
A Poleroid will not do it I'm afraid. Did you never hear of a "Liveness Test" ? So unless you are thinking of cutting someones head off, forget it.............coming to think about it, if you did cut a Head off, it would fail the liveness test !
10. Daniel Walsh
The face is as easy to use as a finger, if not easier, as you do not have to touch anything.
I am of the opinion the the ICAO standard will allow many different Biometrics for Machine Readable Travel Documents, but I suspect that Face and Finger will win out at the end of the day !
11. Daniel Walsh
You should be aware that there is a "Liveness Test" built in to this Facial Biometrics system. No pulse, no good !
Video Stream will not work either, for the same reason.
Hope this helps !