A key concern many people have about facial recognition is about privacy, and with how information is stored, captured and used. Yet for governments and businesses, such software offers increased security. What should the balance be?
To discover more Digital Journal spoke with Daniel Putterman, Co-founder, Co-CEO and Head of Business for Kogniz, Inc.
AlCam offers businesses fully-autonomous surveillance cameras with artificial intelligence that identifies people and threats in real-time, using video-based facial recognition and object detection.
DJ: How are businesses using facial recognition platforms?
Putterman: Businesses, especially in the retail and real-estate sectors, are using Kogniz to watch out for known shoplifters, vandals and other problematic people. By seeing them in real-time, security staff can make informed decisions, reduce crime, and create a safer environment for customer and visitors.
DJ: How about governments?
Putterman: Currently, finding a person of interest requires extraordinary manpower from various agencies. With Kogniz, government agencies can dramatically reduce human resource needs while increasing speed and efficiency in solving and preventing tragic events.
DJ: What are main concerns with the public?
Putterman: When used to automate manual surveillance there really are not any additional concerns experienced by the general public. Surveillance cameras are the norm (there will be $1B of them installed by 2020). By implementing facial recognition, the general public can experience a new level of safety and security, without the inherent flaws in requiring humans to scour video footage.
DJ: What would you say to people who were concerned about data privacy in relation to your platform?
Putterman: People have a legitimate right to be concerned about privacy. We contemplated this when building our technologies. In fact, Kogniz has no ability to ascertain who a person is, rather it is a one-way set of mathematics to determine if the person has been seen before. Unlike other systems, Kogniz, inherent in our algorithms, cannot be comprised and even hacked data would be useless to the offending party.
DJ: How does your platform differ to others?
Putterman: Other systems on the market require massive hardware infrastructure, and starting price tags that make solutions prohibitive for most companies. Kogniz democratizes this technology by allowing any number of cameras to be installed in unlimited locations.
Kogniz is the first video-based solution for identifying people in real-time. Kogniz, on the other hand, keeps an eye out for people you’re concerned about (e.g, a shoplifter) and gives staff members a heads-up so they can be proactive instead of reactive.
DJ: How did you develop AICam?
Putterman: Kogniz Cameras require highly sophisticated machine-learning and artificial intelligence capabilities in the camera and in the cloud. Kogniz has been developing this software capability for over 2.5 years with some of the best minds in the industry.
DJ: What is the main functionality of AICam?
Putterman: The main functionality of our products is to see people, objects (such as a weapon), and activities (such as suspicious behavior), in real-time.
.
