Face recognition has been around as early as the 1960s - in the beginning the systems were protected by patent rights, so not much advancements were noted. Later on, a huge amount of investments were pouring in on what seemed to be a promising venture.
Until today, face recognition biometrics are still referred to as the "future of biometrics". A lot of progress was noted in the last years. The use of high-resolution 3D imaging, (coupled with the advancement in camera technology) with iris recognition and lighting control has shown marvelous results - as low as 0.01 false alarm in comparison to human face recognition (FRGC, 2006) Now, you would not have considered using humans as a benchmark had you been measuring fingerprint metrics, would you?
The fact of the matter is, that coupled with the CCTV technology, face recognition has shown disastrous results, based on recent US and UK researches. As for access control, face recognition can now be applied to commercial use only, with limited ability in providing security. Research is still under way. How much longer?
