INTERPOL holds its first facial recognition symposium

INTERPOL recently held a symposium from October 6-7 at the General Secretariat headquarters where it focused on developing best practices in facial recognition technology.

The symposium — which attracted 90 experts from 40 countries — addressed a range of issues including recent developments in forensic face comparison and automated recognition systems, along with the use of facial recognition to identify child sexual abuse victims from images found online.

INTERPOL also updated attendees on facial recognition initiatives as part of its ongoing forensic capability development, including the development of a database which uses existing facial images of international fugitives and missing persons.

The Morpho-supported database can be connected to member countries to significantly improve identification possibilities.

The world police organization said it also plans to make selected facial images available within mobile devices to help operations and investigations by police in the field, enabling officers to perform facial recognition checks in real time against specific watch lists.

The database would also help support INTERPOL’s international border management taskforce by identifying people using a photograph from government-issued documents such as passports.

Additionally, INTERPOL facial experts working group met up on October 5 and 9 to develop an INTERPOL facial identification training course.

Previously reported, Interpol has called on Asia Pacific authorities to more effectively use biometrics in an effort to identify members of dangerous terrorist organizations such as ISIS.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  border management  |  criminal ID  |  facial recognition  |  forensics  |  Interpol  |  police