The use of facial biometrics for information and analytical support of investigative activities

Over the years, many security approaches have been developed to help protect sensitive data and reduce the likelihood of a security breach. Facial recognition, which is one of the few biometric methods that have the advantages of both high accuracy and low intrusiveness, is a computer program that uses a person’s face to automatically identify and verify identity from a digital image or a video frame from a video source. It compares the selected facial features with an image and a database of faces, or it can also be hardware that is used to authenticate a person. This technology is a widely used biometric system for authentication, authorization, verification and identification. In this regard, its use by law enforcement agencies is growing rapidly. Today, law enforcement officers can use stationary and mobile devices to make ready-to-recognize images of people. CCTV cameras allow law enforcement agencies to instantly access hundreds of thousands of images of citizens’ faces. In some countries, the police use facial recognition using body cameras to identify people in the dark, match a person with an existing sketch, or even create an image of a person’s face from a small sample of his face. The use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement agencies, although not a new practice, attracts increased attention from the public. In particular, problems remain: the reliability of technologies; gender and age errors; the process of collecting, preserving and protecting images contained in various facial recognition databases; public notification of the use of facial recognition and other technologies; rules, standards for regulating and using these systems by law enforcement agencies. Despite this, facial recognition technology can be a valuable investigative tool for detecting and preventing criminal activity; reducing the immediate threat to the health or safety of citizens; assistance in finding missing or wanted persons. The article is devoted to the study of facial biometrics technology, which allows solving important tasks facing law enforcement agencies in terms of: instant identification of offenders; locating wanted persons; accumulation of arrays of “big data” necessary for planning and holding mass events.