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Surveillance camera system can search 36 million faces per second

There is a new surveillance system that a Japanese company has developed that may change life as we know it. I am saying that because it’s that revolutionary. Facial recognition software has been in the making for years now, with many advances recently. I am sure you have seen it in movies too; I am thinking of Minority Report as one example of course. There are also examples here and here that just go to show this type of tech is coming along fast.

Although, to date nobody has been able to compile an entire database, and be able to search it and match back data to those faces. Hitachi Kokusai Electric in Japan is changing that with this new surveillance system. The new software they have developed will be able to recognize a face with up to 30 degrees of deviation away from the camera, and requires faces to fill at least 40 pixels by 40 pixels for accurate recognition, although partial matches are still possible. The kicker is that all this happens within one second.

Being able to search through large groups of people, let’s say at sporting events, theme parks, large stores or big areas will be very easy with this system. If the database is tied into a national criminal database like the PNC (Police National Computer), it can end up being an extremely useful tool. Right now this is available in Japan, but I could see the U.S. have the need for it, but do you think it would be an invasion of privacy? Let me know in the comments below.