the-facial-biometrics-in-the-fight-against-crime

Facial biometrics is a technology capable of identifying, verifying or authenticating a subject by analyzing the characteristics of his or her face, through any audiovisual element of the individual's face. 

It is a tool that has contributed to confront criminality, eliminate certain threats of violence and protect the security of citizens, bearing in mind that robberies, homicides, terrorist acts and armed conflicts are some of the factors that threaten citizens and their quality of life on a daily basis. 

Every day, more and more countries are opting for facial recognition systems as a measure to fight crime. From cities like Chicago or capitals like Moscow to large territories like China, biometric-based software has been implemented and used to identify criminals, fugitives, people involved in police or judicial investigations, missing persons or those responsible for a murder. 

Facial biometrics and the recognition of an individual is performed in different stages. To begin with, it is necessary to have the image of the face to be identified, which will be processed in order to extract the biometric information, such as the alignment of the face with respect to certain geometric properties. Once the facial characteristics and the biometric pattern are obtained, they are compared with the data stored in the systems. After the patterns are compared, a result is obtained that indicates the percentage of similarity of the user, depending on this, the individual is identified. 

Unlike other biometrics such as iris or fingerprint, facial biometrics does not require the user's collaboration, it only requires an image or the face to be acquired by a camera. 

Facial biometrics: a tool for law enforcement authorities worldwide

The International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) developed a facial recognition system (IFRS) that stores images of faces submitted by more than 179 countries, making it a unique global police database. 

The system integrates automated biometrics software . By means of an algorithm, the facial image to be investigated is automatically encoded, and then the models, shapes, proportions and contours of the facial features are analyzed, and comparisons are made with the profiles stored in it. In this way, a result is obtained. 

Since the end of 2016, this system has successfully identified more than 1,000 criminals, fugitives, persons of interest and missing individuals. 

Another case is an application used by some police departments in the United States. According to The New York Times, access to this application is public and has been implemented by the authorities in certain U.S. cities. Facial recognition has helped solve cases of theft, identity theft, fraud, murder, child sexual exploitation, among others. 

The application works as follows: the police upload a photograph of the suspect, which, through software, is compared with a database, which is fed thanks to the portraits published on social networks, according to The New York Times. 

In short, facial biometrics is a technological solution that is being implemented in different countries to combat crime and delinquency. Its use has made it possible to identify persons of interest to the authorities.