Calgary police select NEC’s facial recognition technology

The Calgary Police Service is implementing a facial recognition solution, providing new tools for identifying criminals, and making it the first law enforcement agency in Canada to have facial recognition technology.

After a rigorous review of facial recognition based criminal identification systems, the City of Calgary and CPS chose NEC’s NeoFace Reveal solution, which NIST has found to provide the fastest facial matching capability of any similar product.

Authorities typically work with a photo or video of a crime suspect, and match it against a master facial image database in order to identify the suspect. NeoFace is highly scalable for large throughput volumes, and is capable of integrating into existing operational and security processes, as well as scanning and enhancing poor quality facial images.

“Facial recognition software is yet another tool for our investigators to assist in providing leads to identify potential persons of interest in criminal investigations,” CPS Inspector Rosemary Hawkins said in a statement. “Similar to fingerprint and DNA evidence capture at scenes, facial recognition will create efficiencies by providing more viable leads for investigators.”

NeoFace has been used by other police forces around the world. For instance, the Chicago Police Department used a $5.4 million federal grant to purchase a NeoFace system, which saw its first criminal conviction this year. And, in the UK, Leicestershire’s police department has been using NeoFace to cross reference suspects captured on camera to a database which holds 92,000 images of people who have either been arrested and those who have volunteered to have their images stored.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  Canada  |  NEC  |  NEC America  |  NeoFace  |  police