Nose Recognition Offers New Biometric Hope

UK scientists have put forward proposals to develop new security technologies based on the idea of nose recognition. These, they say, could outperform other biometric recognition techniques like eye and fingerprint scans.

The scientists behind these proposals hail from the University of Bath in the West of England and their work has seen them scanning nose images and cataloguing them in terms of features like overall profile and the shape of the nose-tip.

From this, six predominant nose forms were established: Hawk (curved like a Hawk's beak) Greek (straight in profile), Nubian (narrow at the top, becoming wider down their length), Roman (featuring a distinctive bridge), Snub (a smaller, turned-up nose) and Turned-Up.

40 noses were assessed in all, but the plan is now to scrutinise a wider pool of noses.

Nose: Biometric Recognition

The study produced by the scientists explains that noses are a prominent feature, relatively unaffected by shifts in expression (unlike eyes for example), and its these factors that make them viable candidates to base future biometric recognition technologies on.

"Ears have been looked at in detail, eyes have been looked at in terms of iris recognition but the nose has been neglected", Doctor Adrian Evans stated. He added that a system called PhotoFace - which the scientists employed - could be a significant future security weapon. It could be used in counter-terrorism, to combat the flow of illegal immigrants, against fraudsters and identity thieves alike.

"Noses are prominent facial features, and yet their use as a biometric has been largely unexplored", Doctor Evans continued. "We wanted to find out how good they could be at recognising individuals from a database."

"There's no one magic biometric - irises are a powerful biometric, but can be difficult to capture accurately and can easily be obscured by eyelids or glasses. Noses, however, are much easier to photograph and are harder to conceal, so a system that recognises noses would work better with an uncooperative subject or for covert surveillance."