An artificial intelligence company that was originally founded in Hong Kong, known as SenseTime, has helped to develop biometric identification systems that can work with face masks.

Because of the COVID-19 situation there are millions of people now who are wearing masks and that has caused a few problems for biometric security screening systems.

Now, companies like SenseTime, along with help from others, have come up with a solution to the problem that can help the security systems be able to identify the individual even if they are wearing a face mask.

Some individuals have anticipated that we might be wearing face masks for decades to come now, that this is a 'new normal' we will experience.

While it is doubtful that this will be the case, it's clear that face masks are going to cause a problem for those biometric systems and they need to work on coming up with a solution, which we already see taking place.

Although there have been some issues with this technology there are some that have been able to achieve at least a 98 percent identification score or higher when scanning. But you certainly don't want to fall into that small percent where a mistake is made.

If your biometric data becomes compromised it isn't going to pose the same concerns as if your word password were to be stolen for example. There are still privacy concerns and other challenges posed with this technology, where people have been wrongfully identified.

By 2024 it is estimated that the worldwide facial recognition market could reach $7 billion or more.

Last year it was estimated to be around 3.2 billion so that is significant growth in the next few years.

You are going to be finding this technology everywhere, from work places to airports, banks, and other venues.

The top industries we can expect to see this technology be embraced are likely to be in security, the health market, as well as in marketing and retail, among other possibly areas.

SenseTime also isn't the only company that has been working on this sort of issue, helping facial recognition systems work around masks.

“There are so many face-recognition companies worldwide and everyone is trying to get further ahead and push the technology limits more and more,..” - O. Ronen, head of homeland security at Cortica

From the UK to China there are various players working to bring this technological advancement forward.

Pics:
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