Face Forensics develops facial recognition technology for closed eyes and dead people

Mar 26, 2019 | Chris Burt

Face Forensics Inc. has announced the launch of a new module to apply its biometric facial recognition technology to the identification of dead bodies, despite closed eyes and even damage to the face of the deceased.

The clear edges and high contrast of features around the eyes make that area of the face of particularly high value to facial recognition systems, and make closed eyes particularly challenging for facial biometrics. Systems use the eyeballs as anchor points, and have lower matching performance or do not work at all if they are not visible, according to Face Forensics.

The Corpse-ID module builds on what the company says is its unique partial face recognition capability to enable investigators to optimally estimate eye center locations. The technology also enables parts of a face, such as one side or just the eyes, to be matched against previously enrolled faces.

Corpse-ID has been added to the Face Forensics f2 Image Recognition Suite, which also includes full or partial tattoo recognition and scene recognition.

Facebook developed a technique for “in-painting” eyes for images of people with their eyes closed using a Generative Adversarial Network last year, although it is not clear how the technology would affect facial biometric matching.