- Email: [email protected]
Biometric gun holsters go on sale
NEWS ...Continued from page 3 for dragnet surveillance of Californians, our locations, and our personal associations.” In June, body camera supplier Axon also announced that it would not add facial recognition to its body camera systems until ethical issues were resolved. And in April, Microsoft said it had turned down a request from a law enforcement agency in California to use its facial recognition technology with police body cameras, citing human rights concerns.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon: “Lots of potential for abuses with facial recognition technology, so you do want regulations.”
camera technology
Chinese unveil ‘super camera’
C
hinese scientists have developed a 500 megapixel facial recognition camera that is four times more powerful than the human eye and can capture every face in crowds of tens of thousands of people. The camera was developed by researchers at Shanghai’s Fudan University and the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, according to China’s Global Times news service and Asia Times. It was first shown at China’s International Industry Fair last month. According to the reports, the camera can capture extremely detailed images. For example, in a stadium with tens of thousands of people, it can shoot a panoramic photo with a clear image of every face and find specific target faces within seconds. Global Times also said the camera system can create videos with the same ultra-high resolution as still images, using two special chips developed by the research team. The videos and images captured can also be uploaded to a cloud data centre for wide access. Experts say the camera could be used in national defence, military and public security applications. For example, Asia Times reports Zeng Xiaoyang, one of the camera’s developers, as saying it could be used to monitor city centre crowds in real time to prevent criminal activity. The development has inevitably raised privacy and mass surveillance concerns. China has led the way in mass surveillance, with an esti-
October 2019
mated 200 million CCTV cameras installed. However, in one area it is now stepping back from intense surveillance – the Chinese government announced last month that it plans to “curb and regulate” the use of facial recognition technology in its schools, according to the BBC, quoting Chinese media sources. China’s Ministry of Education made the pledge after a university in Nanjing was recently reported to be trialling facial recognition technology to monitor its students’ attendance and behaviour. This attracted online criticism – and follows the widely reported news last year that a high school in Hangzhou, eastern China had installed surveillance cameras above a blackboard to monitor how attentive its students were in class. Lei Chaozi, director of science and technology at China’s Ministry of Education, has promised a crackdown on such usage, according to the BBC. “We need to be very careful when it comes to students’ personal information,” he said. “Don’t collect it if it’s not necessary. And try to collect as little as possible if we have to.” The Ministry of Education has issued new guidance saying education authorities and schools should seek the opinions of parents, students and teachers before introducing new technology, and should register any new apps being used, to build a database for better supervision, the BBC says.
fingerprinting
Biometric gun holsters go on sale
N
ew York-based Vara Safety has started shipping a range of ‘Reach’ biometric gun holsters, which aim to stop anyone except the owner getting hold of the weapon. The Reach sealed units are made of a highstrength metal alloy and are designed to be wall-mounted in the owner’s home, office or vehicle. They use a built-in fingerprint sensor which identifies the person trying to unlock the holster and take out the firearm. Vara is now shipping the Reach units to more than 400 pre-order customers. The company also said it is in talks with several industry leaders to expand production, and expects to ship thousands of the locally assembled holster safes. Vara says it focuses on “creating beautiful, simple and highly engineered products and services that bring better gun security for families”. The company quotes figures from the Injury Free Coalition for Kids, which found that 50% of handguns in the US are stored loaded or with the ammunition, and that children
are 73% less at risk of unintentional injury when they live in a household with locked and unloaded guns. It also quotes figures suggesting around 100 children aged under 20 die from unintentional firearm-related injuries annually. Company founder and CEO Timmy Oh said: “We will be focusing future development on our core technology application to safety in law enforcement, suicide prevention, pharmaceutical storage, smart homes and more.” Oh previously won $100,000 in a New York State Business Plan competition and has secured financial backing for his products from New York City’s Purritano Management.
innovation
University develops ID system using ear canal
A
research team from the US University at Buffalo (UB) have come up with a novel biometric authentication technique, called EarEcho, which identifies people via their ear canal’s unique geometry. UB associate professor Zhanpeng Jin, who led the research, said he was inspired by the fact that so many students walk around with speakers in their ears. “It led me to wonder what else we could do with them,” he said. Jin, who is associate professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at UB’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, set up a team who have developed EarEcho. The product uses modified wireless ‘earbuds’ to authenticate smartphone users. EarEcho works by playing a sound into the individual’s ear using a pair of ordinary headphones, which is reflected and absorbed by the ear canal. This produces a unique signature which is recorded by a tiny microphone attached to the earbud. The data is then sent via Bluetooth to the user’s smartphone for verification. The research team also developed acoustic signal processing techniques to limit noise interference, and models to share information between EarEcho’s components. To test the device, 20 subjects listened to audio samples that included a variety of speech, music and other content. The team conducted tests in different environmental settings (such as on the street and in a shopping mall) and with the subjects in different positions (such as sitting, standing, head tilted). EarEcho proved roughly 95% effective when given one second to authenticate the subjects. The score improved to 97.5% when it continued to monitor the subject in three-second windows. Continued on page 12...
Biometric Technology Today
11
Jeff Bezos, Amazon: “Lots of potential for abuses with facial recognition technology, so you do want regulations.”
camera technology
Chinese unveil ‘super camera’
C
hinese scientists have developed a 500 megapixel facial recognition camera that is four times more powerful than the human eye and can capture every face in crowds of tens of thousands of people. The camera was developed by researchers at Shanghai’s Fudan University and the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, according to China’s Global Times news service and Asia Times. It was first shown at China’s International Industry Fair last month. According to the reports, the camera can capture extremely detailed images. For example, in a stadium with tens of thousands of people, it can shoot a panoramic photo with a clear image of every face and find specific target faces within seconds. Global Times also said the camera system can create videos with the same ultra-high resolution as still images, using two special chips developed by the research team. The videos and images captured can also be uploaded to a cloud data centre for wide access. Experts say the camera could be used in national defence, military and public security applications. For example, Asia Times reports Zeng Xiaoyang, one of the camera’s developers, as saying it could be used to monitor city centre crowds in real time to prevent criminal activity. The development has inevitably raised privacy and mass surveillance concerns. China has led the way in mass surveillance, with an esti-
October 2019
mated 200 million CCTV cameras installed. However, in one area it is now stepping back from intense surveillance – the Chinese government announced last month that it plans to “curb and regulate” the use of facial recognition technology in its schools, according to the BBC, quoting Chinese media sources. China’s Ministry of Education made the pledge after a university in Nanjing was recently reported to be trialling facial recognition technology to monitor its students’ attendance and behaviour. This attracted online criticism – and follows the widely reported news last year that a high school in Hangzhou, eastern China had installed surveillance cameras above a blackboard to monitor how attentive its students were in class. Lei Chaozi, director of science and technology at China’s Ministry of Education, has promised a crackdown on such usage, according to the BBC. “We need to be very careful when it comes to students’ personal information,” he said. “Don’t collect it if it’s not necessary. And try to collect as little as possible if we have to.” The Ministry of Education has issued new guidance saying education authorities and schools should seek the opinions of parents, students and teachers before introducing new technology, and should register any new apps being used, to build a database for better supervision, the BBC says.
fingerprinting
Biometric gun holsters go on sale
N
ew York-based Vara Safety has started shipping a range of ‘Reach’ biometric gun holsters, which aim to stop anyone except the owner getting hold of the weapon. The Reach sealed units are made of a highstrength metal alloy and are designed to be wall-mounted in the owner’s home, office or vehicle. They use a built-in fingerprint sensor which identifies the person trying to unlock the holster and take out the firearm. Vara is now shipping the Reach units to more than 400 pre-order customers. The company also said it is in talks with several industry leaders to expand production, and expects to ship thousands of the locally assembled holster safes. Vara says it focuses on “creating beautiful, simple and highly engineered products and services that bring better gun security for families”. The company quotes figures from the Injury Free Coalition for Kids, which found that 50% of handguns in the US are stored loaded or with the ammunition, and that children
are 73% less at risk of unintentional injury when they live in a household with locked and unloaded guns. It also quotes figures suggesting around 100 children aged under 20 die from unintentional firearm-related injuries annually. Company founder and CEO Timmy Oh said: “We will be focusing future development on our core technology application to safety in law enforcement, suicide prevention, pharmaceutical storage, smart homes and more.” Oh previously won $100,000 in a New York State Business Plan competition and has secured financial backing for his products from New York City’s Purritano Management.
innovation
University develops ID system using ear canal
A
research team from the US University at Buffalo (UB) have come up with a novel biometric authentication technique, called EarEcho, which identifies people via their ear canal’s unique geometry. UB associate professor Zhanpeng Jin, who led the research, said he was inspired by the fact that so many students walk around with speakers in their ears. “It led me to wonder what else we could do with them,” he said. Jin, who is associate professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at UB’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, set up a team who have developed EarEcho. The product uses modified wireless ‘earbuds’ to authenticate smartphone users. EarEcho works by playing a sound into the individual’s ear using a pair of ordinary headphones, which is reflected and absorbed by the ear canal. This produces a unique signature which is recorded by a tiny microphone attached to the earbud. The data is then sent via Bluetooth to the user’s smartphone for verification. The research team also developed acoustic signal processing techniques to limit noise interference, and models to share information between EarEcho’s components. To test the device, 20 subjects listened to audio samples that included a variety of speech, music and other content. The team conducted tests in different environmental settings (such as on the street and in a shopping mall) and with the subjects in different positions (such as sitting, standing, head tilted). EarEcho proved roughly 95% effective when given one second to authenticate the subjects. The score improved to 97.5% when it continued to monitor the subject in three-second windows. Continued on page 12...
Biometric Technology Today
11