NEC Solution Identifies Boston Marathon Bombing Suspect

NEC Corporation of America's (NEC) NeoFace facial recognition software accurately identified a Boston Marathon bombing suspect during a Michigan State University study, according to the company.

The study examined the reliability of automated facial recognition software to assist law enforcement in identifying suspects in a simulation of the forensic work done after the Boston bombings. Media reports of the post-Boston bombing investigation created a common perception that facial recognition technology is not always reliable because it apparently was not a factor in identifying the suspects.

The published results of the MSU study challenge this perception.

In the MSU simulation, researchers used actual law enforcement video from the bombing and searched it against a background database of 1 million law enforcement booking images. They found that the NEC NeoFace product produced a "rank one" identification—a match—of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (formerly known as suspect No. 2).

The study found that the NEC NeoFace solution consistently registered highly accurate facial matching scores in the study's simulation.

Read the full study here .