face recognition statistics

Full Face Recognition Statistics, Interesting Facts & New Trends

1. Face Recognition Statistics

  • Global Forecast to 2024″, facial recognition market size is projected to grow from USD 3.2 billion in 2019 and expected to reach USD 7.0 billion by 2024, at a CAGR of 16.6% from 2019 to 2024 (marketsandmarkets)

2. Face recognition systems are getting better all the time

  • Massive gains in accuracy have been made in the last five years (2013- 2018) and exceed improvements achieved in the 2010-2013 period. (According to a recent NIST report)
  • Most of the face recognition algorithms in 2018 outperform the most accurate algorithm from late 2013.
  • In its 2018 test, NIST found that 0.2% of searches, in a database of 26.6 million photos, failed to match the correct image, compared with a 4% failure rate in 2014.
  • It’s a 20x improvement over four years.

Let’s check face recognition by region:

face recognition by region

3. Face Recognition in: Apple, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft

  • According to Apple, the probability that a random person could look at someone else’s iPhone X and unlock it using Face ID is approximately 1 in 1,000,000. (Apple)
  • Facebook DeepFace program can determine whether two photographed faces belong to the same person, with an accuracy rate of 97.25%. When taking the same test, humans answer correctly in 97.53% of cases, or just 0.28% better than the Facebook program (Facebook)
  • Google went one better with FaceNet. On the widely used Labeled Faces in the Wild (LFW) dataset, FaceNet achieved a new record accuracy of 99.63% (0.9963 ± 0.0009). (Google)
  • In May 2018, Ars Technica reported that Amazon is already actively promoting its cloud-based face recognition service named Recognition to law enforcement agencies. The solution could recognize as many as 100 people in a single image and can perform face match against databases containing tens of millions of faces. (Amazon)
  • In July, Newsweek reported that Amazon’s facial recognition technology falsely identified 28 members of US Congress as people arrested for crimes. (Amazon)
  • At the end of June 2018, Microsoft announced in a blog post that it had made substantial improvements to its biased facial recognition technology. (Microsoft)
face recognition statistics

4. Face recognition in healthcare & emerging trends

  • The global facial recognition systems market is anticipated to hit over $1.1B by 2024 in healthcare, growing at a 13% CAGR between 2019 and 2024.(MarketWatch)
  • The Beijing Municipal Health Commission reported that 30 hospitals in the city have collected facial data of more than 2,000 people who’ve been punished for booking and selling medical appointments in bulk. The software uses visual data to flag suspected scalpers when they enter one of the Beijing hospitals. (Beijing Municipal Health Commission)
Face recognition is applied in healthcare to check:
  • Securing hospital facilities
  • Emotion detection and sentiment analysis
  • Patient fraud
  • Hospital traffic pattern analysis

5. Face recognition in marketing and retail & emerging trends

  • Walmart has patented technology that would enable cameras to capture shoppers’ facial expressions. (Walmart)
  • 49% of people agree that facial recognition should be used in stores if it catches shoplifters. (Statista)
  • Most shoppers (56%) are open to using facial recognition to guard against crimes such as shoplifting, according to the (FaceFirst)

6. Face recognition in airport

  • By 2023, 97% of airports will roll out facial recognition technology. (Reservations.com)
  • By 2021, facial recognition will be in use at the top 20 U.S. airports for 100% of international passengers
  • “Since its inception, over two million passengers on over 15,000 flights have used the technology on exit,”
  • By the end of 2021, CBP has been given the goal of scanning the faces of passengers on 16,300 flights per week.
  • Currently at 18 airports across the US
  • The first arrest aided by facial recognition technology was at Washington Dulles International Airport in August 2018.
  • 72% of hotel operators are expected to deploy facial recognition by 2025 to identify and interact with guests. (Forbes)

7. Face recognition in banking

  • Seven Bank plans to outfit its ATMs with facial recognition technology, according to an account in the Japan Times ( Japan Times)
  • In banking, Chase, HSBC, and USAA are using Apple’s FaceID to allow customers to log in to their mobile banking apps. (Aitrends)
  • UK-based Lloyds Bank is testing Microsoft’s biometric authentication technology. (Aitrends)
  • Bank of America is also reported to be working on biometric authentication, including facial recognition (CB Insights)
  • Cloudwalk Technology of China, which had raised $507 million as of September 2018. They have contracts with the Bank of China and Bank of Chongqing (Aitrends)

8. Facial recognition and security – law enforcement & emerging trends

In 2017, the driver’s license facial recognition technology used in New York led to 4,000 arrests. (ARS Technica)

In 2018, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in New Delhi launched a trial using facial recognition technology that positively identified 2,930 missing children in just four days. (CNN)

9. Face recognition in academic & emerging trends 

Facial recognition systems have now been sold to thousands of US schools, with vendors
‘pitching the technology as an all-seeing shield against school shootings’ (Harwell 2018, n.p)

The Chinese University of Hong Kong achieved facial identification scores of 98.52% compared with the 97.53% achieved by humans