To strengthen public safety capabilities in Malaysia (and anywhere for that matter), NEC Corporation of Malaysia recently introduced a very promising product. NeoFace, a facial recognition solution was unveiled for the first time as part of public safety capabilities. This new technology was introduced during the Public Safety & Internal Security Asia 2014 held at the Grand Millennium at Kuala Lumpur from 12 – 14 August 2014. NEC’s NeoFace is the world’s fastest and most accurate facial matching product.

This technology has been adopted by organisations in more than 20 countries throughout the world, including police forces, immigration offices, and amusement facilities.

Reveal and Watch
NeoFace is categorized into two systems; namely NeoFace Reveal and NeoFace Watch. NeoFace Reveal is a software for a forensic application that captures facial images from photographs and crime scenes. These images are then enhanced and encoded for matching against a mugshot repository from a variety sourced database.

Whereas NeoFace Watch is designed for operational security users. NeoFace Watch integrates with existing video surveillance systems and works by extracting faces in real-time from cameras, simultaneously matching them against a watch list of individuals to trigger an alert.

The technology adopts a modified generalised Learning Vector Quantisation (GLVQ) algorithm which enables high speed and accuracy in facial detection and features extraction. CCTV surveillance, border control, law enforcement, immigration and likewise utilises GLVQ for security purposes.

NEC’s face recognition has achieved the highest performance evaluation in the recent Face Recognition Vendor Test (FRVT) 2014 performed by the U.S National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Test results on one-to-many searching in various circumstances showed that the search accuracy and face recognition algorithm’s speed for image search surpasses significantly than competitors.

According to account manager for Biometrics Solutions division of NEC Corporation of America, Keith Raderschadt to The Star, NeoFace Reveal is able to create a 3D model of a face by combining video frames from various angles. It is essential due to the fact that most of the database usually contain front view images of the people. NeoFace can even function with low resolution images.