Face recognition

Face recognition is the technology with the goal of identifying a person by their face, captured on an image or as a video frame. It is primarily based on analyzing the patterns on the face and matching them with a database of different human facial features. It is widely used across the modern world, including famous facial identification systems in smartphones.

At its core, facial recognition usually consists of 4 steps. To localize the face against the background, face detection is performed first. Next, the face pose and image properties are taken into account, with the face aligned in a way that ensures the correct location of the facial features.

Features are extracted on the third step, and the most important of them, such as nose or eyes, are localized and evaluated. This is important for the fourth step, where the facial feature vector is compared to the recorded facial data to confirm or reject the match.

Why is it important?

The importance of Face Recognition is primarily in the security and identification areas, or video surveillance. Facial recognition systems are inbuilt in most modern smartphones and are used in countless access applications either for virtual or physical access. They are also widely used in entertainment, particularly in face-modification technologies.