You might be concerned about the reliability of facial recognition as more businesses request to maintain a digital image of your face for identification verification. After all, if your password is revealed in a data breach, you can always change it, but you can't exactly acquire a new face.

Facial recognition technology is essential when talking about money, especially regarding banks and money transfer businesses. The form of financial crime that is expanding the fastest is synthetic ID fraud, which entails constructing a brand-new identity. 

This new identity might even have a false "face" that can trick facial recognition software used by businesses. What further steps can you take to secure your identity besides using facial recognition technology, which may be a simple and practical solution to keep your data private?

What Is Facial Recognition?

Facial recognition is a method for recognising or verifying someone's identification by looking at their appearance. Facial recognition software can identify people in real-time and still photos and movies. Face recognition is a subtype of biometric security.

Additional biometric software kinds include those that recognise the voice, fingerprints, retina, or iris of the eye. Most of the technology's applications still fall under security and law enforcement, despite increased interest in employing it in other fields.

How Does Facial Recognition Work?

Facial recognition generally identifies and recognises one person as the single proprietor of the device, limiting access to others rather than relying on a large database of images to determine an individual's identification.

Facial recognition technology matches the face of persons passing by special cameras to pictures of people on a watch list, going beyond simply accessing phones. The photographs on the watch lists can come from anywhere, even our social media accounts, and they can show anyone, even those who are not suspects of any crime. Even though facial technology systems can vary, they generally operate as follows:

Face Detection

The camera can recognise and pinpoint a face, whether it is present by itself or with other individuals. The subject may be shown facing directly ahead or in profile.

Face Analysis

The face is then photographed and examined after that. Since it is simpler to match a 2D image with pre-existing data or with publicly available photos, most facial recognition technology employs 2D rather than 3D images. The computer analyses your face's geometry.

The spacing between your eyes, the depths of your eye sockets, the space between your forehead and chin, the form of your cheekbones, and the curvature of your lips, ears, and chin are all important considerations. 

Transforming the Image to Data

The face capture process transforms analogue information (a face) into a database of digital information based on the subject's facial characteristics (data). You've reduced the analysis of your face to a formula. The faceprint is a numerical code. Every person has a faceprint, just like every thumbprint is different.

Finding a Match

Finally, your faceprint is compared to a database of other known faces. For example, the FBI has access to up to 650 million photographs that are taken from various state databases. Facebook adds any image that has been given a name tag to their database, which also has facial recognition software. A conclusion is made if your faceprint matches a photo in a facial recognition collection.

Does Facial Recognition Help Protect from Fraud?

Although it can offer greater protection than a straightforward passcode or a fingerprint scanner, facial recognition has significant drawbacks.

To begin with, not every application is made equally. For example, Apple uses an infrared camera, a dot projector, and a flood illuminator to produce a 3D map of your face. This technique successfully thwarts individuals attempting to access your phone and personal accounts using a 2D image of you.

Since no technology is perfect, some people have taken advantage of facial recognition software's weaknesses. Experian discovered that con artists could mix the facial traits of other persons to create "Frankenstein faces" by utilising artificial intelligence. 

Organisations that rely on face recognition technology to avoid fraud are made more difficult by this type of synthetic fraud, which blends actual and fraudulent information to construct an identity. In terms of how you use face recognition technology, synthetic fraud shouldn't always give you a lot to worry about, but there are other ways it may.

Your private details, especially your Social Security number, could be used in the expanding scam since synthetic fraud employs both genuine and phoney data to build a new fraudulent identity. Because of this, it's crucial to approach identity protection from all angles.

Safe and Secure Money Transfer Service

For thieves, the banking and finance industry is a veritable gold mine. Some fraudulent activities on the rise include opening fictitious bank accounts, account takeover (ATO) fraud, identity theft, money laundering, and terrorist financing.

We prioritize your safety while you send money online to protect yourself from fraud. Our priority is to forewarn and safeguard both our clients and the systems to prevent them from being used as a tool for fraudulent operations.

ACE Money Transfer's main goal is to manage fraud threats. ACE is keen to maintain its standing as a trustworthy international provider of money transfer services. Additionally, ACE will take legal action against any type of criminal activity, including fraud, financing terrorism, and money laundering.