ROC is the top US firm for age estimation in latest NIST ranking

Colorado-based ROC has broken back into the top tier in the recent NIST Face Analysis Technology Evaluation (FATE) for Age Estimation and Verification, posting a 2.96 mean absolute error (MAE) across Application, Border and Mugshot categories.

In measuring across three main datasets, it makes ROC’s age estimation algorithm second-best globally, behind only French giant Idemia – and the best in the United States.

“Once again, we are thrilled to be recognized through NIST benchmarking as a leading provider of highly accurate age estimation technology,” says Dr. Brendan Klare, chief scientist and co-founder of ROC, in a release celebrating the results.

“As the top-ranked American-made biometrics company in this space, we take great pride in pushing the boundaries of Vision AI research and performance to meet the rigorous standards of our military, law enforcement, and global FinTech partners.”

Like similar age estimation algorithms, ROC’s age estimation accurately estimates a user’s age within a certain threshold without requiring their date of birth or other sensitive personal information.

US age assurance market a giant waiting to awaken

If the age assurance debate has so far tilted toward big policy movements in the UK and Australia, the U.S. stands as the largest single potential market for age verification and age estimation technologies.

By a country mile, the States has the highest daily traffic on major streaming platform Pornhub, and it is the second largest market behind India for both of Meta’s social platforms, Instagram (149 million users, about 7.5 percent of the total) and Facebook (280 million users, roughly 9 percent.) About 70 percent of all Americans use social media in some shape or form.

Which is to say, by achieving excellence in age estimation, ROC stands to expand its focus on defense, law enforcement and fintech to encompass a market that includes much of the general U.S. public. It does so at a tipping point: around the world, rules are changing to prevent kids from accessing adult material online, and to shield them (for a time) from the potential harms of social media.

Texas has so far been the main scuffling ground over age assurance in the States. But the new administration coming into the White House in January 2025 will likely do little to curtail either free speech advocates or content police speaking to so-called family values – meaning more friction is probably on the horizon.

Age assurance tech is sure to figure heavily in the conversation, as it has in Australia and the UK. Now, ROC (pronounced “rock”) has the numbers to go with America-forward branding that claims it as “the only multimodal biometrics and computer vision provider that’s proudly 100 percent made in America.”

Blake Moore, COO of ROC, says it has made protecting the safety of children one of its core missions by ensuring age-appropriate access to online content and services. “As regulatory bodies tighten restrictions and consumer awareness grows, we have seen a massive jump in demand for reliable and robust age estimation technologies,” he says.

“We take age estimation very seriously and see immense potential in the role of ethically developed solutions that safeguard minors while simultaneously protecting user privacy, empowering our clients to operate more securely, efficiently, and in full compliance.”

ROC says its “high-fidelity algorithms, derived from massive ethically sourced datasets and fully designed and developed in the USA, are proven to deliver exceptional accuracy with zero bias.” The company also offers facial recognition, fingerprint and iris biometrics, and next-gen ABIS capabilities, as well as live video analytics for real-time threat detection, gun detection, and situational intelligence.

Czech Technical University algorithm storms up the list

The latest facial age estimation list shows some shuffling in the top five since the last tally. Idemia retains its top position from the last ranking, and Incode and Nominder also remain near the top of the list.

New to the top five is algorithm cvut-002 from the Czech Technical University in Prague, posting MAEs of 2.929, 3.404 and 2.768 respectively for application, border and mugshots. (Yet with an average across all three of 3.03, it still finishes behind ROC.)

While Jumio and Yoti fall out of the top five for this round, they occupy spots six and seven, respectively.

Article Topics

age verification  |  biometric testing  |  biometrics  |  Face Analysis Technology Evaluation (FATE)  |  face biometrics  |  NIST  |  ROC