FINDING missing children may be made easier as Microsoft Philippines looks to introduce for free its recently developed face-recognition application program interface in the country.
It is a cloud-based service that uses advanced algorithms to scan images of faces for identifying features and determines the likelihood that two faces belong to the same person, according to the software provider’s web site.
In 2015 the technology reunited a boy with Down Syndrome, who went missing for four years, with his father.
Since then, Microsoft has teamed up with other organizations to help send lost children home.
“We have actually pixelized pictures of children. We actually created a fingerprint of a picture of a missing child and we now have a database of thousands, actually hundreds of thousands of missing children,” said Microsoft Philippines national technology officer Jomari Mercado during the recent Techonomy 2017 Forum held on Thursday at the Maybank Performing Arts Theater in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig.
The company will use the Internet of Things to match these faces with footages from closed-circuit television cameras.
“That is a technology that Microsoft is offering to governments around the world, to other foundations around the world for free,” Mercado said.
As for other developments, he said Microsoft is in talks with the Philippine government to integrate this face and fingerprint-detection technology to the proposed National identification System.
He said part of his role as a national technology officer of the multinational is to push for its adaption nationwide.
“It’s not an easy job. All the things in terms of the challenges we have to face, I face them today. But there is a lot of hope and there’s a big light at the end of the tunnel that I can see happening soon,” Mercado added.
Microsoft Philippines copresented with Acer Philippines the Techonomy Forum, the first-ever conference to tackle the vital role of technology and economy.
It gathered top executives and leaders in government, business and education to discuss this very subject and its potential benefits to the different sectors and organizations in the country.