NEC and DataWorks Plus Provide Facial Recognition Solution to Aid Pennsylvania Criminal Justice Community

NEC Corporation of America (NEC), a leading provider of biometric identification technologies and integrator of advanced IT solutions, and DataWorks Plus, LLC, a leader in criminal justice and law enforcement solutions, announced the delivery of the JNET Facial Recognition System to the Pennsylvania Justice Network (JNET), an integrated justice portal that delivers justice information to nearly 40,000 police officers and criminal justice professionals in Pennsylvania.

JNET Facial Recognition System (JFRS) uses DataWorks Plus’ FACE Plus product, a web-based solution that provides accurate, reliable identification, and which incorporates NEC’s NeoFace™ facial recognition matching software technology to process and compare images. The system serves more than 800 contributing law enforcement and other state offices in Pennsylvania and includes more than 250 capture locations, more than 2.5 million arrest records, and 38,000 web retrieval users sharing data records and mug shot images across the state’s WAN.

JFRS enables Pennsylvania’s criminal justice professionals to verify or discover identity matches through one-to-one or one-to-many searches in a database sized for 3.5 million criminal booking images. So far, the JFRS identity searches have aided investigators in solving numerous cases, including homicides, robberies, burglaries, fraud and identity theft.

JFRS also includes the PA Watchlist functionality that enables users in the field to add suspect images from bank cameras, ATMs, retail security cameras and other sources to the watch list, enhancing the opportunity for additional identifications.

“We’ve been very pleased with the selection of NEC’s facial matching and the DataWorks Plus solution and the positive results we’ve seen since the system came online. The new NEC face-matching algorithm demonstrates superior accuracy in identification, even when submitting and searching poor quality and lower pixel count images,” said David Naisby, executive director of JNET.

“In December 2011, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) independently tested and verified NEC’s NeoFace as the most accurate facial recognition software available,” said Raffie Beroukhim, vice president, NEC Biometrics Solution Division. “NIST’s Image Compression test showed the NEC algorithm produces superior performance when using low-quality, compressed photos. We are pleased for the successful field implementation of this technology and our ability to extend facial recognition as a powerful investigative tool to the Pennsylvania JNET law enforcement community.”

Brad Bylenga, general manager and owner of DataWorks Plus, LLC, said, “DataWorks Plus is pleased to be partnered with NEC for the Pennsylvania JNET Facial Recognition System implementation as well as other pending projects. We feel that the NEC Neo-Face Facial Recognition Search Engine has greatly enhanced our FACE Plus Facial Recognition System offerings.”

According to Harry Giordano, Special Projects manager for JNET, successes have occurred during the JNET System Training Sessions, which are currently taking place at Computer Training Labs across the commonwealth. “Officers coming to the JNET Training Sessions are asked to bring photos of unknown suspects from open cases and, using the system for the first time during training, are getting HITS and solving crimes,” said Mr. Giordano. “Thanks to DataWorks Plus’ intuitive Graphical User Interface and accuracy of the core facial recognition technology even first-time users are able to get positive results.”

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