Face Recognition Technology May Help Expert Passport Officers Detect Fraud

First Posted: Oct 19, 2015 08:04 AM EDT

New face recognition software could be a way to prevent fraud. Scientists have found that face-matching experts at the Australian Passport Office are 20 percent more accurate than average people at detecting fraud using automatic face recognition software.

"Our research shows that accuracy can be significantly improved by recruiting staff who are naturally good at face recognition-the so-called 'super-recognizers'-and then giving them in-depth training in the use of the software," said David White, lead author of the new study, in a news release.

Face recognition software search large databases of known offenders or existing passport and license-holders. This software then generates a list of the top eight or so "candidate faces" that closely match the suspect or person applying for a document. This match could help reveal if someone is fraudulently applying for a second passport under a different name.

"The accuracy of automatic face recognition software has improved markedly in recent years," said White. "But, despite its name, the system is not fully automatic. Human skills are also very important. Once a list of candidates has been generated by the software, a police officer or passport officer must decide whether any of these images are of the target person. Our study is the first to test how well people can match the identity of faces selected by facial recognition software."

In this latest study, the researchers found that students and non-experts passport officers made errors 50 percent of the time when determining whether a face was on the list of candidates or not. Experts, however, performed far better; they outperformed other groups by 20 percent.

The findings are published in the journal PLOS One.

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TagsForensic Science, Forensic, Human, Humans, Face Recognition, Software, Identity