Airport facecams useless - The Register

[Tolan Blundell]

Well this is quite encouraging.

-Tolan.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/21916.html

[Quote]

"Anyone offended by the Orwellian implications of using face-recognition
technology to scan airport crowds for terrorists can take heart in the fact
that the technology is, quite simply, worthless in that situation.

As an authentication tool, used in controlled settings, face recognition has
real value. But even here we can expect a false acceptance rate (FAR) of one
in 250, according to biometrics outfit FaceKey. "

[snip]

"'Limiting access to secure areas in airports would be a perfect application
for biometrics,' Starkweather says.

But in uncontrolled settings, such as we'd encounter in a surveillance
context, the performance of face recognition falls to absurd depths. "

[snip]