The Security Industry Association (SIA) released a statement thanking the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for its “thoughtful and diligent” work producing a report evaluating the performance of current facial recognition technology across demographic groups. Facial recognition is a fast-advancing technology in a constant cycle of improvements and is widely adopted across the public and private sectors. SIA says that reports from non-biased organizations like NIST are immensely valuable, and commends NIST for encouraging research organizations to examine this issue comprehensively rather than publish incomplete research in order to generate attention.
Facial recognition solutions offer tremendous benefits for homeland security and public safety applications, and the clear advantages of this technology necessitate that steady improvements be made and documented to ensure that the public can trust this technology’s public benefits, according to SIA.
The NIST report found that demographic differentials are lessening due to many of the high performing algorithms producing fewer errors.