From the We’re Not Quite There Dept comes news of a failure: facial-recognition software.The St. Petersburg Times reports that two years after Tampa became the nation’s first city to use facial-recognition software to search for wanted criminals, officials are dropping the program. It led to zero arrests. Police spokesman Joe Durkin put a brave face on it: “I wouldn’t consider it a failure,” he said. “You are always looking for new and efficient ways to provide the best service to the community. There’s going to be ups and downs.”
The system used New Jersey-based Visionics Corp’s Face-It software, which was installed on 36 cameras in the Ybor City entertainment district.