Face recognition is a way of identifying or confirming an individual’s identity using their face. Facial recognition systems can be used to identify people in photos, videos, or in real-time.

Facial recognition is a category of biometric security. Other forms of biometric software include voice recognition, fingerprint recognition, and eye retina or iris recognition. The technology is mostly used for security and law enforcement, though there is increasing interest in other areas of use.

Many people are familiar with face recognition technology through the FaceID used to unlock iPhones (however, this is only one application of face recognition). Typically, facial recognition does not rely on a massive database of photos to determine an individual’s identity — it simply identifies and recognizes one person as the sole owner of the device, while limiting access to others.

Beyond unlocking phones, facial recognition works by matching the faces of people walking past special cameras, to images of people on a watch list. The watch lists can contain pictures of anyone, including people who are not suspected of any wrongdoing, and the images can come from anywhere — even from our social media accounts.

Luxand.cloud face recognition API is really accurate and fast. We typically match faces or enroll images in under a second. This speed can be affected by the size of the image, the number of faces in the image, and your use case. We’ve found that low resolution images work just as well as high resolution images as long as there are at least 75 pixels between the person’s eyes. The smaller the image, the faster it is able to be processed. We can process images as small as 12 KB with great success.

• Is facial recognition technology accurate?

  The accuracy of facial recognition technology varies depending on a number of factors, including the quality of the images being used, the specific algorithms being employed, and the reference database being compared to. In general, however, modern facial recognition technology is highly accurate.

• Is facial recognition technology legal?

  The use of facial recognition technology is legal in many countries, but there are also some restrictions and limitations in place in some jurisdictions. It is important to check the specific laws and regulations in your area before using facial recognition technology.

• Can facial recognition technology be used to identify anyone?

  Facial recognition technology can only be used to identify individuals who are included in the reference database being compared to. If an individual is not in the reference database, the technology will not be able to identify them.