Face-recognition security comes to mobile phones
A company in Japan is shipping software for camera-equipped Linux devices that uses face recognition technology to authenticate users. Omron says its Okao Vision Face Recognition Sensor can increase the security of mobile devices such as camera phones and PDAs, and protect the data they contain.
According to Omron, as the capabilities of mobile devices such as cell phones grow, the need for security increases as well, since they increasingly include remote access systems, and payment and planning services. Omron's Okao can protect such information should the device be lost or stolen, Omron says.
The user configures the software by taking a reference picture of themselves. Thereafter, in order to unlock and use the phone, they must snap another picture of their own face, which the software compares to the original. Authentication happens "within a second" of snapping the picture, Omron says (on some processors).
Omron claims that the camera need not be held in the same position each time, and that the sensor will detect the owner regardless of the location of the user's face in the frame.
