Brace Yourself, AI-Powered Facial Recognition Drones Are Coming To You

AnyVision, an Israeli startup, is taking facial recognition to the next level.

As a concept, facial recognition technology has been at the receiving end of the negative eye in many countries. Two main reasons for the slack are the technology being biased against the minorities and the uncomfortable feeling of being in a surveyed state.

To counter these concerns, work to improve facial recognition technology is undergoing rigorous advancements, with both private companies and governments working to harness the technology's potential for military, law enforcement, and commercial applications.

Taking big strides is an Israeli startup called AnyVision Interactive Technologies.

What's Happening?

AnyVision is deploying drones to capture images. In a very sci-fi manner, the drone captures the image of its target person, then analyzes the image for better clarity and resolution, and adjusts itself by flying a little lower to reposition the image of the target. It then runs all the captured images through a machine learning program to obtain a "face classification" and a "classification probability score". In simple terms, the drone tries to identify if the person it photographed is the person it was looking for. What happens if the probability score is low? The system simply gets routed back to step one.

Though the drone system is an advancement, it might still bother the citizens. Imagine a drone moving around to get a clear picture of your face, adjusting its position to get multiple shots, does that feel normal? CCTV or surveillance cameras are fixed on poles and streetlights and are often hardly noticeable, but a flying camera is far more obvious.

AnyVision technology's application is not limited to government and law enforcement. According to CEO Avi Golan, picture-taking drones can be used for delivering packages and to track employees for safety purposes in shady workplaces like mines. Golan sees "many opportunities in the civilian market."

Currently, AnyVision has a "visual AI platform" that can be employed for security purposes. It can be used to identify a person when he/she enters a store, as a tool to help companies and their employees to get back to working from offices safely amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. To facilitate a safe working space, AnyVision's visual AI platform can facilitate contact tracing, contactless access, and remote authentication to help social distancing in the workplace.

The patent for AnyVision's drone is pending, but competitors are quickly developing similar technologies despite the public frown. Surely there are some positive uses to drone technology but the cons (creating uncomfortable moments with drone flying in people's faces) outweighs the pros.

Shankar Narayan, technology and liberty project direction at the Americal Civil Liberties Union shares a similar opinion saying, "The basic premise of a free society is that you shouldn't be subject to tracking by the government without suspicion of wrongdoing. Face surveillance flips the premise of freedom on its head and you start becoming a society where everyone is tracked no matter what they do all the time."

Golan, though, is optimistic about drone technology. "I think it's a futuristic technology, but I want to have it in my pocket until it becomes more accepted by humanity", he told Business Insider.

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