Top 11 Facial Recognition Software in 2021 – Spiceworks

Facial recognition software (FRS) is defined as a biometric tool used to match faces in images, usually from photos and video stills, against an existing database of identities. This article will give you a comprehensive understanding of FRS, a checklist to pick the right software, and the top tools available in the market in 2021.

Table of Contents

What Is Facial Recognition Software?

Facial recognition software (FRS) is defined as a biometric tool used to match faces in images, usually from photos and video stills, against an existing database of identities. It can be broken down into three parts — detection (finding a face in an image), analysis (face mapping), and recognition (confirming identity). 

An example of facial recognition technology is the auto photo tagging feature on Facebook or even Google Photos. Social media and tech giants like these map a user to the face in the photo by sorting through their existing database of uploaded images. Since facial features are much more complex than other existing biometric methods like fingerprints and the eye’s iris, FRS tools require complex, artificially intelligent algorithms.

According to a 2021 reportOpens a new window by NIST, facial recognition algorithms now have an average error rate of just 0.08%, compared to the 4.1% in 2014. Neural networks and deep learning technology have significantly evolved since then, enabling significant development in 3D recognition software. It’s not just the underlying algorithms, we now have more powerful microcontrollers and processors and advanced camera technology for lenses and on-chip processing. Access to this hardware in the form of smartphones has become a boon to the FRS industry. 

Early this year, Juniper Research reportedOpens a new window that facial recognition hardware such as Apple’s FaceID is the fastest growing form of biometric smartphone hardware. It is estimated that over 800 million smartphones will be using them by 2024. Considering the advancements in technology and the accelerated market growth, this would be the right time to incorporate facial recognition technology into your business.

Also Read: What Is Multi-Factor Authentication? Definition, Key Components, and Best Practices

How does facial recognition software work?

Any good FRS has three key components:

1. 1. Hardware

      to capture the images. These images can also be fed into the software from independent devices.

   2. Intelligence

      to compare the captured faces with existing data.

   3. Database,

      i.e., an existing collection of identities. These can be anything from employee databases to images scrubbed from social media.

      (Please note that scrubbed social media images are unethical.)

Now, let’s understand how FRS works.

1. Detection:

   Detection begins with the extraction of the face out of the image fed into the system. Subsequently, various features on the human face are marked. Certain features of the face do not change with age or size. These include the distance between the eyes, the depth of the eye socket, and the shape of the nose. There are around 80 such features called ‘landmarks.’ The measurements of these landmarks are then put together to create a code. This code is called a ‘faceprint,’ and it is unique to every person.

2. Matching:

   This faceprint is then matched with the prints stored in the system. At this stage, the image goes through several layers of technology to ensure accuracy. Since most of our databases are currently 2D photos, the database images need to be processed by a layer of technology. This processing usually involves pulling out the facial landmarks to resemble their 3D counterparts. If the subject image is low resolution, it must be encoded and decoded to produce details with the desired resolution. The algorithms need to consider the differences in lighting, facial expression, and angles.

3. Identification:

   The goal of this step depends on what the facial recognition software is used for — surveillance or authentication . This step should ideally produce a 1:1 match for the subject. This may be done in multiple ways, a quick pass to narrow down the options, then enable the more complex layers to take over. Some companies analyze skin texture along with facial recognition algorithms to increase accuracy.

Each facial recognition software provider focuses on different aspects of the technology layers to provide almost-flawless service. For example, one software may focus on correcting lighting conditions while another can focus on skin texture analysis. 

Also Read: What Is Biometric Authentication? Definition, Benefits, and Tools

Who uses facial recognition software?

Companies like Mastercard are already using FRS as an identifier during payments and for building security. FRS has potential uses in retail, the hospitality sector, banks, ATMs, and airports. Mobile commerce-oriented companies will benefit largely from FRS. Marketing firms are looking into using FRS for personalized customer service. 

For example, some ecommerce businesses selling eyewear are working on using FRS to recommend glasses that look good for your facial structure. This negates the need to visit a store to try them on. Today’s most significant use cases of FRS, however, lie in security.

Key Must-Have Features of a Facial Recognition Software

Facial recognition software can be used for authentication, surveillance, or marketing. Depending on your use-case, here are some key features to look for while considering FRS options:

Key Must-Have Features of a Facial Recognition Software

1. Trained and growing database:

   The accuracy rate of any FRS depends on the database that its artificial intelligence was trained on. The data needs to be continually growing, with diversity in terms of gender and ethnicity. The training data also needs to have a variance in lighting, angles, and facial expressions. A good database also carries different resolutions of images for the system to work with. Machine learning programs are only as good as the database they use to learn, and the FRS is no exception.

2. Security and user privacy:

   Any biometric software is closely tied to a person’s identity. This means that data (in this case, faceprints) accumulated by the FRS is highly sensitive. User data must be encrypted and purged at regular intervals. Software providers must have a robust plan in place in case of a data breach.

3. Algorithm accuracy:

   The key metrics to look at while considering an FRS are false acceptance rate (FAR) and false rejection rate (FRR). FAR is when different images are falsely matched as identical. In this case, if you’re using it for security, the wrong person may be allowed access. In FRR, exact images are falsely mismatched as different. In this case, the right person may be denied access. In a practical security scenario, the FAR must be low and the FRR high.

4. Scalability:

   For large enterprises looking to use FRS for authentication, scalability is essential since the software needs to be deployed across multiple locations.

5. Adaptability and support:

   FRS providers must offer fallback options into account. In case of system failure, human support and oversight might be required while the system returns to normal. Support is also needed for setting up the hardware, particularly cameras, for maximum accuracy.

6. Transparency and ethics:

   FRS has been called out several times in the last year alone for the lack of transparency involved. Ensure that the software you use does not resort to unethical practices like social media scrubbing to collect training data or violate user privacy.

Also Read: Top 10 Multi-Factor Authentication Software Solutions for 2021

Checklist to Pick the Right Software

Any organization looking at choosing a suitable facial recognition software should consider the following questions:

1. Does the FRS meet your business needs?
   

   You may need the FRS for identifying faces within a closed dataset ( employee authentication ), open dataset (retail customer tracking), or just for verification (just check if two images are the same).

2. Is the solution secure?

   Data must be encrypted and protected from breaches. It should also protect user privacy.

3. Is the software tested?

   To test for accuracy with your own data, there are existing open data sources available like

   LFW

   and

   MegaFace

   . You can also hire third-party data providers for the same. Just make sure that the dataset chosen to test the system reflects the actual people using the system in your use case.

4. Have you checked the FAR and FRR metrics?

   While considering these metrics, also think of the threshold of accuracy that you are okay with. For example, is it okay for your business if the FRS shows up matches that are only 70% the same?

5. Does it have a strong support team?

   FRS solutions are complicated, and a good support team is required for seamless integration into your existing system and smooth running. The support team must also help finetune the software and hardware based on your needs.

6. Do any of the software’s terms violate state laws?

   Facial recognition is a hot-button topic right now, and regulations about it vary from state to state in the U.S. Ensure that you are not crossing any legal lines while using an FRS.

Also Read: How to Secure Online Identities With Passwordless Authentication

Top 11 Facial Recognition Software in 2021

Facial recognition software is usually not available as a stand-alone software purchase but usually comes as a part of services. Businesses who want to integrate facial recognition technology with their own products and apps can opt for the web service-based software solutions available today. Here are the top 10 facial recognition software available in the market today. 

Disclaimer: These listings are based on publicly available information and vendor websites. Readers are advised to conduct their own extended research on each meeting software. The companies are listed alphabetically.

1.

Amazon Rekognition

Core services: Amazon Rekognition is one of the most reliable names in the Facial recognition software game. 

• • Facial analysis and facial search are used for user verification, people counting, and public safety use cases. 

  • Rekognition can identify objects and scenes by giving them labels. 

  • Amazon has the advantage of having a massive dataset at its disposal. This ensures accuracy.

  • Rekognition allows users to add custom labels to objects and scenes to suit business needs. This ensures higher match success rates. All the business has to do is supply images of the objects and locations to be identified. 

  • Amazon provides content moderation . It has a tested dataset which it uses to flag inappropriate content. It also provides text detection to recognize names.

  • Its latest offering is PPE detection that identifies workers wearing PPEs for security.

  • It provides face search and verification within a private repository of photos too. Please note that storage costs are incurred in this case.

  • Rekognition also provides face detection and analysis in videos — live or stored.

Customer base: Amazon Rekognition’s current customer base includes media houses, market analytics firms, ecommerce sites, and credit solutions.

Customer support: The solution provides documents, samples, and tutorials.

Pricing model: The pricing model is based on the services used and the number of images analyzed. As part of the AWS free tier, image processing can be used for free. The Free Tier lasts 12 months and allows you to analyze 5,000 images per month and store 1,000 pieces of face metadata per month. After this, the monthly cost is calculated using the number of images processed (plus the storage fee, if applicable). Similar tier-based packages are available for video processing and custom labels.

Editorial comments: Amazon Rekognition can be used by organizations that have zero machine learning expertise. It is an expensive solution, so it is for businesses with a budget to spare. One thing that users warn to keep an eye out for is adding-up storage costs. 

2.

Betaface

Core services: Betaface mainly focuses on image and video analysis and face and objection recognition. 

• • It offers three kinds of services — facial recognition SDKs, customer software development services, and hosted web services.

  • Services can be simple face detection or complex facial recognition, identification, and verification.

  • It uses biometric measurements for facial feature tracking on both images and videos. It can recognize emotion and ethnicity. 

  • It can also track skin, hair, facial features, and hairstyle shape. 

  • It provides video surveillance and security software solutions.

Customer base: Betaface’s customer base includes web advertising and entertainment agencies, media content producers, and B2B software developers. 

Customer support: Betaface provides integration assistance. It also helps with the complete web service and database infrastructure support if opted for.

Pricing model: Betaface allows you to use its API for free for 500 images per day and €0.035 per image after that. It also offers three monthly subscription plans — the basic plan at $245 for processing 40000 images, the premium plan at $490 for 100000 images, and the ultra plan at $1595 for 300000 images. Additional costs are charged for processing every extra image based on the subscription plan.

Editorial comments: Betaface can be used by organizations that are a bit tech-savvy and possibly have their own developers looking to integrate their application with an FRS. This solution may cater well to small enterprises. 

Also Read: Why Adaptive Authentication Should Be a Core Component of Zero Trust Networks

3.

BioID

Core services: BioID is a GDPR-compliant solution that provides biometrics-as-a-service. It provides cloud-based FRS services that can be accessed by your product using APIs. The software offers three products: 

• • BioID web service:

    This is a SaaS offering that can be deployed on-premise or on the cloud. 

  • Liveness detection:

    This is a recognition service to detect user presence using face, eye, and voice recognition. It is used to prevent online fraud and identity threats.

  • PhotoVerify:

    This solution combines face detection technology with BioID’s Liveness Detection service to verify photos used as identity proofs. 

Customer base: This solution caters to companies that need e-identification & e-signing. It provides services to financial services, KYC with biometrics, self-service car rentals, health care, and online exam organizers.

Customer support: BioID has robust online documentation of its APIs.

Pricing model: BioID’s services can be purchased at a pay-per-user level. You may contact BioID for pricing.

Editorial comments: Organizations with their own applications or products can consider BioID. It is ideal for businesses where identity verification is essential, like car rentals. Companies that have a presence across continents can consider this solution as it is GDPR-compliant.

4.

Cognitec

Core services: Cognitec provides scalable and customizable FRS to customers through its open system architecture through ‘FaceVacs.’ Cognitec offers five solutions:

• • FaceVACS-VideoScan ES Live: This can be used for recognizing faces in live video streams. BioID extends this solution by providing a way to count individuals, generate demographic statistics, and track people’s flow.

  • FaceVACS-VideoScan ES: This is Cognitec’s subscription-based enterprise solution to install and manage video scans. Cognitec selects the computing and camera equipment and manages it on-premise or on the cloud by deploying a Cognitec partner.

  • FaceVACS-DBScan ID: This is a biometric verification and identification solution.

  • FaceVACS-DBScan LE: This is a biometric verification solution for law enforcement.

  • FaceVACS-Entry: This solution integrates FRS software with state of the class hardware to create electronic gates in border control checkpoints.

Customer base: Cognitec currently has clients in ID management, law enforcement, physical security, and border control. The software also works with commercial products.

Customer support: Cognitec clients can raise issues with the Cognitec Customer Portal. It also provides on-site support, training, and consultancy services. A remote support team is also available.

Pricing model: Prices start at $0.01/one-time/user and differ as per usage.

Editorial comments: Cognitec works best for organizations looking for FRS-based security and crowd control solutions. It has a big presence in the facial recognition market and can provide effective, large-scale solutions with minimal set-up costs.

Also Read: What Is Password Management? Definition, Components and Best Practices

5.

DeepVision AI

Core services: DeepVision AI provides FRS solutions for marketing and planning and for businesses looking to use facial verification for security. 

• • It gathers the footfall data in a particular area of the city by recognizing age, gender, and ethnicity. This data is used to help advertisers and brands target customers with personalized ads. Facial recognition and verification for security

  • DeepVision’s facial verification solution identifies individuals by users like law enforcement for security.

  • It provides a real-time analytics dashboard that can be customized.

Customer base: DeepVision is currently targeting smart city planners. Its customers mainly include retail firms and advertising agencies. 

Customer support: DeepVision AI provides a Q&A service by email for web service integration queries. It also provides hands-on support from computer vision experts. It also offers 24×7 support all year round.

Pricing model: This software is priced along a consumption dimension. Your bill will be determined by the number of requests you make. The software charges $0.008 per 10 requests, based on facial recognition, age and gender recognition, vehicle recognition, visual context, visual search, and brand recognition.

Editorial comments: DeepVision is best suited for real estate developers, retail firms, and marketing agencies. The AI-based feature here can be applied to pedestrian safety and mobility, incident detection, and vehicle recognition, among others, to provide automated video analysis. It is ideal for medium to large-sized enterprises looking for scalable solutions.

6. Face++

Core services: Face++ provides four types of technology solutions: 

• • Facial recognition for face detection, face comparison, and face search.

  • Human body recognition for body detection, skeleton detection, and body outline.

  • Image beautify for merging faces in multiple photographs.

  • Image detection – for tagging faces on photographs.

Face++ provides SDKs and APIs to leverage each of these technologies, along with custom cloud services. Its API offerings include face detection, comparison, search, facial landmark information, emotion recognition, eye-gaze estimation, skin status analysis, and 3D facial reconstruction. Its SDK offerings include face comparison and facial landmark information.  

Customer base: Today, Face++ is used in the automotive industry, education, online marketing, and mobile phone industries.

Customer support: Face++ has comprehensive online documentation for APIs and SDKs. It also has an online support console for its users.

Pricing model: It offers four pricing models – free, pay as you go, daily/monthly plan, and pay for licensing. The free model allows users to test their APIs and SDKs for an unlimited time, limiting the number of QPS. Daily and monthly rates vary from $1000 to $10,500 monthly, depending on the features chosen.

Editorial comments: Face++ is great for facial comparison with stored images. The granularity of features it offers and its flexible pricing models make it a natural choice for companies who are still trying to figure out how they want to integrate with FRS. 

Also Read: 10 Best Password Managers for 2021

7.

FaceFirst

Core services: FaceFirst aims to use DigitalID to replace cards and passwords. It mainly provides FRS-based solutions in four key areas: 

• • Security solutions: These include authentication, access control, ID verification, and age verification.

  • Customer engagement: For loyalty programs and personalized ads.

  • Safety: For loss prevention and fraud mitigation with real-time alerting for identity spoofing attempts

  • Business insights: For sentiment scoring, traffic analytics, audio analytics, and fraud analytics by businesses.

Customer base: Facefirst’s customers include retailers, transportation centers, and other organizations that require authentication, customer engagement, and loyalty solutions.

Customer support: Facefirst provides on-call support — it has an online support center to create service requests.

Pricing model: Contact FaceFirst for pricing.

Editorial comments: FaceFirst is best suited for businesses looking to integrate FRS in their sales and marketing efforts. It has already proved effective in the large retail front, especially with retail theft.

8.

Kairos

Core services: Kairos provides FRS-based web services and an SDK for businesses to integrate its solutions. It provides facial detection, identification, and verification services. The software can also track important demographic data. Its auto-tagging feature enables quicker search and indexing of images and videos. 

Customer base: Kairos is currently used in market research, capital management, automotive, banking, health, and security.

Customer support: Kairos provides online documentation and support by email.

Pricing model: Kairos has a 14-day free trial program. It offers three plans: Student Cloud at $19/month, Developer Cloud at $99/month, and Business Cloud at $249/month.

Editorial comments: Kairos is best suited for organizations looking to equip their mobile applications with FRS features. While users report a steep learning curve during integration and initial use, they also report Kairos’ advanced features as a definite plus.\

Also Read: The Problem With Storing Passwords in Your Browser (and How to Fix It)

9

. SenseTime

Core services: SenseTime provides face and body analyzing technology, besides its stand-alone FRS services. Its solutions boast high accuracy. It provides services like: 

• • Face detection

  • Facial feature point positioning: Feature positioning is marked irrespective of wide-angles, changing expressions, or movement.

  • Facial attributes: The solution can accurately recognize more than ten facial attributes.

  • Liveness detection: User verification solution to prevent spoofing attacks.

  • Body feature point: This is used for body analysis, and it uses 14 body feature points to recognize the various parts, including during movement.

Customer base: SenseTime’s customer base includes smart city planners and companies in the automobile, healthcare, and advertising sectors.

Customer support: SenseTime provides documentation for users.

Pricing model: Contact SenseTime for pricing.

Editorial comments: This product can be used for enterprises with more video-based facial recognition needs.

10.

Sky Biometry

Core services: Sky Biometry is a web service provider which offers three primary services:

• • Face detection

  • Attribute determination

  • Facial recognition

Customer base: Sky Biometry’s current customer base consists of businesses conducting advertising campaigns, photo management, user authentication, or community moderation, like dating profile moderation and verification.

Customer support: This software provides detailed API documentation online. Support response time varies based on the subscription plan chosen.

Pricing model: Sky Biometry has three pricing plans — first is free, second is €50 per month, and third is €100 per month. You may even contact Sky Biometry for a custom pricing plan. Subscription plans are based on the number of API calls per month/day/hour and the number of trained tags. 

Editorial comments: Sky Biometry is ideal for organizations that have their own development teams creating applications. It was spun off from Neurotechnologies, a company that has been in biometric identification and object identification for more than two decades. This means that along with legacy, Sky Biometry has one of the most flexible and scalable FRS SaaS offerings.

11.

Trueface.ai

Core services: Trueface.ai provides FRS solutions in three modes — with an SDK, a deployable container, and a plug-and-play (beta) software solution. The software offers four primary services: 

• • Facial recognition

  • Weapon detection

  • Space analytics 

  • Live verification to prevent spoofing attempts

Customer base: Its customer base consists of companies from the fintech, education, security, healthcare, retail, and hospitality sectors. It also provides solutions for government agencies.

Customer support: Trueface.ai provides online documentation and has an active developer hub.

Pricing model: Pricing starts at $99 per month per service.

Editorial comments: Trueface is ideal for businesses with coding expertise. This may change once its plug-and-play solution progresses from beta.

Takeaway

Facial recognition technology is no more a thing of the future. It is here now, and many organizations have already started using FRS for security, marketing, and business purposes. The intelligence analytics derived from FRS can be used for predictive analysis and further equipping products. For successful FRS deployment, enterprises must test each FRS solution with a comprehensive and meaningful dataset. 

Are there other features a facial recognition software should include? Comment below or let us know on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window . We’d love to hear from you!