Idaho parole officers test facial recognition app to check on parolees

Parole officers in Idaho, U.S., have been using a facial recognition app to communicate with their parolees, Idaho Press reports.

The biometric app, dubbed a.check, was developed by the Attenti Group, a company specializing in electronic monitoring solutions.

A.check provides parole officers with a series of features to communicate with their parolees, including facial recognition and location checks, as well as video chat capabilities.

It also enables them to peruse documents related to the person’s specific case from within the app.

According to Jeff Ray, spokesman for the Idaho Department of Correction, Idaho is paying $1 per day for each person using a.check.

With currently almost 30 staff members and nearly 160 people on supervision using the app, the annual cost of the app would be almost $70,000, Ray told Idaho Press.

Despite its geo-localization capabilities, the A.check app does not integrate any alarm functions, as its use would not be meant to be punitive.

As far as the effectiveness of the app is concerned, Officer Bri Showerman told Idaho Press it is currently “hit or miss”, as much depends on the person’s initiative to actively use it.

The pandemic could, however, speed up the adoption of contactless technologies like this, since they limit physical interaction and with it, the spread of the virus.

In fact, last April, a biometric passive facial liveness solution from ID R&D was used by Reconnect to ensure the presence of people confirming their identity and location for parole monitoring.

And in October, mobile biometric authentication with Aware’s face and voice liveness detection was used to authenticate the identity of offenders in the criminal justice system of Arkansas.

Article Topics

biometric identification  |  biometrics  |  criminal ID  |  facial recognition  |  identity verification  |  law enforcement  |  mobile app  |  monitoring