Facial recognition and periocular biometrics for masked faces developed by pdActive, EDGENeural.AI and FacePhi

International fear that coronavirus is spreading at an alarming rate in public spaces has led to a number of touchless biometric systems and technologies being released by AI companies hoping to contribute to COVID-19 relief efforts.

AI developer pdActive has released technology that upgrades cameras with biometric facial recognition technology for face mask biometric identification in harsh environments during the pandemic, the company announced.

ActiveMatch has been developed in partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense, and leverages deep learning, big data AI and advanced technology for facial recognition accuracy and behavior analysis, among other features.

“Our AI team has been together for years, originating back to Carnegie Mellon when they worked with the DoD to provide advanced facial recognition technology solutions in very harsh, dynamic environments that had people with their faces partially covered,” said Don Knasel, pdActive founder and CEO, in a prepared statement.

“pdActive’s retail theft reduction technology has been used by Fortune 500 companies for years. Now we are providing a new solution to address the unanticipated challenges related to the coronavirus that range from contact tracing, optical temperature detection and the need to know who a person is while wearing a mask.”

Knasel added “Organizations need highly accurate facial recognition to know who is on site, what they are doing and their body temperature before they enter a location. We must get this solution right to solve today’s most difficult challenges, while balancing our responsibility between public safety, privacy and the overall health of our community.”

Indian startup EDGENeural.AI releases biometric facial recognition terminal

Already in phase two of its economic reopening plan, India is no longer allowing the use of fingerprints in employee-tracking systems but looking into cards or biometric facial recognition.

Indian deep-tech startup EDGENeural.AI has launched a contactless biometric facial recognition terminal dubbed FaceEdge to register employees and track attendance. The company says identification and authentication are accurate whether people are wearing masks or not.

FaceEdge enables real-time and local processing, it leverages high-speed AI-powered facial recognition, syncs with multiple locations and devices, and is touch free. Administration or the HR department can easily install the system without additional support and then upload employee data. The data is then accessed by the AI model to identify people entering the organization. For devices spread out across PAN India, the company provides centralized enrollment and device management and employee tracking.

FacePhi releases periocular biometry-based algorithm to prevent impersonation

FacePhi has also introduced an algorithm with an alleged 99 percent reliability in recognizing people who wear face masks by analyzing periocular biometry, respectively the features around the eyes, to prevent impersonation, the company announced.

“Thanks to Selphi evolution – our face authentication program – better solutions can be provided to healthcare environments or spaces where it is important to be extremely hygienic, so access through facial recognition can be very useful,” the company said in a prepared statement. “The use of this technology goes beyond the current coexistence with COVID-19 and can be a great ally for hospitals, clinics and laboratories; environments where the use of a face mask is constant and contactless identification solutions are the most recommended in order to prevent contagions.”

After being chosen by over 50 banks worldwide for facial recognition-enabled digital onboarding, FacePhi is tapping into eHealth through a partnership with NSSMART and Kangbuk Samsung hospital in South Korea, which integrated its facial recognition technology.

“Thanks to our developments, patients at this hospital have switched their health cards and manual entry of records for a facial recognition system with prior consent. This is preventing fraud in health insurance and offering a quick experience that greatly limits contact, something that, as we are verifying, will mark the future of healthcare. We continue working so that new applications, such as face mask authentication, begin to be integrated in hospitals and health centers”, concluded FacePhi.

Article Topics

access control  |  authentication  |  biometric identification  |  biometrics  |  contactless biometrics  |  EDGENeural.AI  |  FacePhi  |  facial recognition  |  pdActive  |  periocular biometrics  |  time and attendance