Making Facial Recognition Smarter With Artificial Intelligence

The global videos surveillance market is expected to post a compound annual growth rate of close to 11% during the period 2018-2022 according to Technavio. The potential benefits of leveraging artificial intelligence (A) in the physical security industry have pros and cons on both sides, but the debate over the ethical ways to leverage AI and surveillance continues as more and more surveillance systems are getting the brains to match what they see.

AI startups like Boulder AI, which offers a vision-as-a-service and IC Realtime, which lets you search and analyze your video feeds from CCTV system; are gaining traction. Alongside the Chinese facial recognition startups like Megvii’s Face++ with $600 million in private equity; SenseTime with $62o million from a series C; and, Yitu Technology with $300 million from a series C, the potential uses of facial recognition technology are well funded.

Umbo Computer Vision is a Taiwanese startup with $10 million for its AI-powered video security system that can understand human behavior.

Umbo’s CEO, Shawn Guan says that physical security has been with us for decades. “We see cameras at many places like schools, public transit, offices, or in residential communities but most of us have no emotional connection with them. We do not feel more or less secure when we see cameras. There is a great disconnect here, but AI is going to change that.”

“In the future, when we are walking on the street and see an AI-powered camera, we will feel safe,” said Guan.

Guan believes that AI is the key to transform the security industry from evidence collection to prevention. “Machine learning and AI to understand human behavior unlocks the passage to real-time situation awareness of public safety and asset protection, like making sure no one can scale the wall to come into an elementary school, break into cars or facilities.”