Sunday, March 25, 2012

Big Brother just got scarier: Japanese CCTV camera can scan 36 million faces per second - and recognise anyone who has walked into its gaze

- Biometric camera stores details of everyone who walks past it
- Stores 'library' of face info
- Can scan through 36 million faces per second searching for people
- Will be on sale to governments within next year

UK Daily Mail

A new camera technology from Hitachi Hokusai Electric can scan days of camera footage instantly, and find any face which has EVER walked past it.

Its makers boast that it can scan 36 million faces per second.

The technology raises the spectre of governments - or other organisations - being able to 'find' anyone instantly simply using a passport photo or a Facebook profile.

The 'trick' is that the camera 'processes' faces as it records, so that all faces which pass in front of it are recorded and stored instantly.

Faces are stored as a searchable 'biometric' record, storing the unique

When the police - or anyone else - want to search for a particular individual, they're searching through a gallery of pre-indexed faces, rather than a messy library of footage. - [Full Article]