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A Russian company whose software is used\u00a0<\/strong>to match facial photos to individual identities has $25,000 from the\u00a0U.S.<\/span>intelligence\u00a0community.<\/p>\nNTechlab, based in Moscow, is best known for building a product called \u201cFindFace\u201d that let users surreptitiously take photos of strangers and match them to their online social media profiles through Russian Facebook-counterpart\u00a0VKontakte.<\/p>\n
NTechlab was one of two companies to win prizes as part of Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity\u2019s Facial Recognition Challenge, which sought to evaluate the tech sector\u2019s best identification software. NTechlab won in the categories of \u201cidentification speed\u201d and \u201cverification accuracy\u201d\u2014the latter refers to an ability to verify that two photos are of the same person. A Chinese company, called Yitu, won in the \u201cidentification accuracy\u201d category for its software\u2019s ability to match a face to a specific\u00a0identity.<\/p>\n
Though the cash prizes do\u00a0not establish any formal relationship with the\u00a0U.S.<\/span>\u00a0federal government, NTechlab\u00a0CEO<\/span>\u00a0Mikhail Ivanov told\u00a0Nextgov\u00a0<\/em>that he hopes the publicity could help the company \u201cpenetrate that target market\u201d and score more contracts with public safety groups around the world, especially those interesting in keeping specific people on the other side of their\u00a0borders.<\/p>\n The city of Moscow is already test-driving NTechlab\u2019s technology with 150,000\u00a0CCTV<\/span>\u00a0cameras throughout the city, passively scanning the faces of citizens as they walk around, to track down criminals. NTechlab\u2019s technology scans a person\u2019s face and compares it to a government database, Ivanov\u00a0explained.<\/p>\n IARPA<\/span>\u00a0launched the challenge so it could assess software\u2019s ability to quickly and passively identify faces in the \u201cwild<\/a>,\u201d including from public security footage. An internal\u00a0IARPA<\/span>\u00a0research program called\u00a0Janus<\/a>\u00a0is developing its own facial recognition\u00a0technology.<\/p>\n The majority of the 16 companies participating in the challenge were international, program manager Chris Boehnen told\u00a0Nextgov<\/em>. And while he\u2019d expected participation from commercial tech companies in the United States, Silicon Valley stalwarts like Google, Facebook and Amazon \u201ctend to be reluctant to\u00a0participate.\u201d<\/p>\n The challenge was administered in partnership with the National Institute for Standards and Technology.\u00a0NIST<\/span>\u00a0plans to release a report on the solutions\u00a0presented.<\/p>\n Asked for ways government might use facial recognition technology, Boehnen speculated that it could help automate services like passport processing, identify criminals based on security footage, or simply authenticate users into various\u00a0accounts.<\/p>\n