Face recognition: The next big tech leap

Internet companies like Facebook and Google are trying to use the technology to make it more user-friendly.

You open your laptop lid and instantaneously the operating system recognizes you and logs you in. Or, just as you enter your office, the camera over the door takes a look at you and opens the door after seeing you are an employee.

These may not be popular, but the face-recognition technology, on which they are based, is not a futuristic concept either. Though not widely publicised, engineers have been working on it for long.

Internet companies like Facebook and Google are trying to use the technology to make it more user-friendly. Success has been mixed, and compounded by privacy issues. In August this year, Facebook, in an update to its data-use policy, said it was planning to include most of the 1-billion plus profile photos into their facial recognition database.

Its intent is to speed up the process of tagging friends and acquaintances who appear in photos posted on the network. Now, the technology automatically identifies faces in newly uploaded photos by comparing them only to previous snapshots in which users were tagged. And for good measure, Facebook users have the option to remove tags identifying them in photos posted by others. But the new move drew the attention of US officials who are trying to determine if it's in violation of a 2011 agreement with federal regulators.

In June last year, Facebook acquired a facerecognition technology firm in Israel, Face.com. However, after privacy concerns, Face.com's API, which could identify people based on digital photos , was shut down. Later, a US startup LambdaLabs came out with an open-source API. The company's co-founder Stephen Balaban told Tech-Crunch that the API would be available to interested developers working on Google Glass. Google later announced that it would not allow any face-recognition features on Glass.

But that has not stopped research. In June, TechCrunch reported that another company, Orbeus , was developing a face-recognition technology that takes adequate care of privacy issues.

While not revealing the person's identity, it can recognize gender and emotions, and vaguely even say how beautiful a person is. Stating that its API doesn't violate Google's updated Glass policies, Orbeus CEO Ning Xu told TechCrunch, "Even without facial recognition, we can do a lot of things with your face, without revealing your identity."

Thanks to privacy concerns, the technology has a long way to go, and it may be a while before we see its widespread application.