The BOSS Project: Recent Advances in Facial Scanning

Adam C. Champion

BOSS Project

• New York Times reported (Aug. 21, 2013) [1]– Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) tested

Biometric Optical Surveillance System (BOSS)

– Goal: identify persons of interest in crowd• E.g., terrorism suspects, criminals at large events

– Customers: U.S. police departments• Originally: military (detect persons with IEDs)

Technical Challenges

• BOSS faced the following challenges:– Distinguish person of interest in crowd at a distance

– Various lighting conditions

– Harder to scan a crowd than to scan an individual

BOSS Development

• Electronic Warfare Associates. Inc. developed BOSS with U. of Louisville scientist

• Two towers with infrared cameras, distance sensors

• Compute 3D model of person’s face

• Model compared with photos in databases

…

Criminal?Criminal?

BOSS Test Results

• DHS tested BOSS in a Washington state arena six times– 30 volunteers’ faces compared to 1000 criminals’

faces

• Conclusion: police departments should not buy BOSS– Facial recognition accuracy degrades at larger

distances– Takes ≥ 30 s to process images

Privacy Implications

• The Times story heavily mentions privacy– Currently, there are no “rules” about how a BOSS-

like system should be used• Could track people’s movements in public places

• Civil libertarians argue for policy establishment

– Public has accepted some surveillance in public places like airports

Thank You

Questions and Comments?

References

1. C. Savage, “Facial Scanning is Making Gains in Surveillance”, New York Times, 21 Aug. 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/21/us/facial-scanning-is-making-gains-in-surveillance.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0