No smiling allowed
Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 8:26 pm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/200 ... nses_N.htm
I'm a bit surprised people smile at all.The serious poses are urged by DMVs that have installed high-tech software that compares a new license photo with others that have already been shot. When a new photo seems to match an existing one, the software sends alarms that someone may be trying to assume another driver's identity.
But there's a wrinkle in the technology: a person's grin. Face-recognition software can fail to match two photos of the same person if facial expressions differ in each photo, says Carnegie Mellon University robotics professor Takeo Kanade.
In 2000, Illinois had 12,419,293 people. That works out to 0.048% of all people in the state. Granted, not many people smile anyway but this is a ridiculous policy to catch such a tiny amount of people.In Illinois, photo matching has stopped 6,000 people from getting fraudulent licenses since the technology was launched in 1999, says Beth Langen, the state head of Drivers Services.