Biometric Face Recognition At Your Local Mall

dippityfisch writes "The Sydney Morning Herald reports that face recognition is being considered at Westfield's Sydney mall to catch offenders. The identification system matches images captured by surveillance cameras to an existing database of faces. Police said they could not comment on the center's intentions, but would welcome any move to improve security and technology in the area."

How worthwhile is this, actually?

[xmundt]

Greetings and salutations...
          Here is an interesting study that indicates that the chances of a false positive are fairly great, especially in a chaotic setting:
http://www.rand.org/pubs/documented_briefings/DB396/DB396.pdf

          One might wave this off as inconsequential, until one gets a security escort in the mall because their face happens to resemble that of a pedophile or thief.
          Automating enforcement is a tricky thing, and, should be approached with great caution. We should not hop on the train simply because it is new, and shiny, and a sales person has taken us out for a multiple martini lunch!

          Of course, this is a USA-centric view, where at least we have the historical documents that are SUPPOSED to protect the citizens against abuse of one's civil rights by the authorities... You folks out in the rest of the world...well....learn from the fact that over the past eight years or so, that, in spite of the Constitution, America has taken many large and troubling steps towards a Kafa-esque police state.
          Pleasant dreams.
          Dave Mundt

Video Surveillance is Useless

[S3D]

Video Surveillance is Useless [uwa.edu.au] Presentation from prominent computer vision researcher, inventor of phase correlation method [wikipedia.org] It basically saying, that on current tech level video surveillance is useless for face identification. What follow is that it's actually harmful, due to wrong impression of it's reliability.

Re:Media bias?

[TapeCutter]

The SMH is one of our better rags, however like all newspapers it does print some syndicated stories [google.com.au] verbatim. It also has the occasional wacko in the editorial pages to stir up contraversy (I'm looking at you Ms Devine).

The SMH is owned by the Fairfax group, funny you should mention Fox News because Howden [zoominfo.com] is actually employed by News Corp, not Fairfax.

Re:Solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

In many jurisdictions (such as mine), wearing a mask in public (except in inclement weather, or as required by a medical condition) is a criminal act in itself.

Re:Solution?

[Nocterro]

Over here in sleepy old Adelaide, South Australia, our Westfield guards have been known to cause deaths Security guard charged over elderly man's death [abc.net.au]. Walking into a mall with your bike helmet accidentally left on will quickly atttract a number of tall, angry men.
A mask would be asking for way more trouble than it would be worth, as it'd be taken as practically a declaration of intent to cause trouble.

Re:It's private property people ...

[dugeen]

Absolutely. Malls have an implied invitation to the general public to enter - and their rights come in with them. 'Private property' isn't a law-free zone even in a capitalist analysis.