Unconstrained Face Recognition

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Abstract

Research into recognition of faces in surveillance video has progressed rapidly since the incredible advances in deep learning techniques from about 2012 onwards. It appeared that there were no new research challenges arising in face recognition and that such systems would be routinely deployed by about 2022. The reality is that while the core technology is working better than ever, two massive challenges have emerged. The first challenge is the rapidly increasing concerns regarding face recognition and AI ethics in general. Indeed face recognition is probably the AI technology generating the greatest concern of all — not because the technology does not work, but because it is working far too well. The second challenge is the ubiquitous usage of face masks in public spaces due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. This is a huge challenge to the technology and is also a great impediment to gathering masked data in the field. Despite these two great challenges, our commercial partner deploying our recent face recognition technologies has successfully rolled out hundreds of face recognition nodes in the UK over the last two years and has won a major security award from the UK Home Office. This talk will describe current challenges, research themes, and recent successes in some of our commercial projects.

Biography

Brian C. Lovell was born in Brisbane, Australia in 1960. He received the BE in electrical engineering in 1982, the BSc in computer science in 1983, and the PhD in signal processing in 1991: all from the University of Queensland (UQ). Professor Lovell is Director of the Advanced Surveillance Group in the School of ITEE, UQ. He was President of the International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR) [2008-2010], and is Fellow of the IAPR, Senior Member of the IEEE, and voting member for Australia on the Governing Board of the IAPR. He was General Co-Chair of the International Conference on Biometrics (ICB2018) Gold Coast, Australia and was Program Co-Chair of the International Conference of Pattern Recognition (ICPR2016) in Cancún Mexico, and was General Co-Chair of the IEEE International Conference on Image Processing in Melbourne, 2013. His interests include non-cooperative Face Recognition, Surveillance, robust face detection, Biometrics, and Pattern Recognition. His work in biometrics and surveillance has won numerous international awards including the prestigious Best CCTV System at IFSEC2011, Birmingham for Face in the Crowd recognition. He also won the Asia Pacific ICT Trophy for Best R&D in the Asia Pacific Region in Phuket, Thailand in 2011.

Brian Lovell
The University of Queensland, Australia