Face recognition image data cache

• US 10,146,797 B2
• Filed: 01/12/2016
• Issued: 12/04/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 05/29/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Accenture Global Services Limited (Accenture PLC)
• Original Assignee: Accenture Global Services Limited (Accenture PLC)
• Inventors: Bataller, Cyrille, Astrom, Anders, Schiopu, Vitalie, Khalafi, Hakim
• Primary Examiner(s): Le, Vu
• Assistant Examiner(s): Rivera-Martinez, Guillermo M
• Application Number:
  US14/993,803
• Publication Number:
  US 20160350334A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,057 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/53 Querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/583 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5838 using colour
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 18/211 Selection of the most significant subset of features
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/771 Feature selection, e.g. selecting representative features from a multi-dimensional feature space
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/172 Classification, e.g. identification

Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for storing facial recognition image data in a cache. One of the methods includes receiving an image from a camera, detecting, in the received image, a face of a person, searching a biometric data cache based on the detected face, in response to searching the biometric data cache based on the detected face, determining whether the biometric data cache includes data for the person, in response to a determination that the biometric data cache includes data for the person, using the data from the biometric data cache to determine an identifier for the person, and in response to a determination that the biometric data cache does not include data for the person: searching a data storage system based on the detected face of the person to determine whether the data storage system includes data for the person.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a data storage system configured to maintain, for a first group of multiple different people, biometric data for each of the multiple different people;

a biometric data cache configured to maintain, for a second group of multiple different people that is different than the first group, image data for each person in the second group, each person in the second group having at least a threshold likelihood of being within a field of view of a camera, wherein the biometric data cache is different from the data storage system and the second group of multiple different people includes fewer people than the first group of multiple different people;

a data processing apparatus; and

a non-transitory computer readable storage medium in data communication with the data processing apparatus and storing instructions executable by the data processing apparatus and upon such execution cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising;

receiving an image from the camera;

detecting, in the received image, a face of a person;

determining, using the received image, image data for the person based on the detected face of the person;

searching, using the image data for the person, the biometric data cache;

in response to searching the biometric data cache, determining whether the biometric data cache includes data for the person;

in response to a determination that the biometric data cache includes data for the person, using the data from the biometric data cache to determine an identifier for the person; and

in response to a determination that the biometric data cache does not include data for the person;

searching the data storage system based on the detected face of the person to determine whether the data storage system includes data for the person; and

storing the image data for the person in the biometric data cache.

2. The system of claim 1, the operations comprising:

determining, for each person in the second group of multiple different people, a likelihood that the person in the second group will be within the field of view of the camera within a threshold amount of time;

selecting, for each person in the second group of multiple different people, the person in the second group in response to a determination that the likelihood that the person in the second group will be within the field of view of the camera within the threshold amount of time satisfies a threshold likelihood; and

maintaining, for each person in the second group of multiple different people, the biometric data cache with image data for the person in the second group.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the biometric data cache is for a specific camera, the operations comprising:

receiving another image from the camera;

detecting, in the other image, a face of the person;

determining, using the received other image, second image data for the person;

determining a second biometric data cache for a second camera that is a different camera than the camera, wherein the second biometric data cache a) is a different cache from the biometric data cache and b) is difference from the data storage system;

causing a second data processing apparatus to search the second biometric data cache using the second image data for the person;

receiving a message indicating whether the second biometric data cache includes data for the person;

in response to receipt of a message indicates that the second biometric data cache includes data for the person, using the data from the second biometric cache to determine an identifier for the person; and

in response to receipt of a message indicates that the second biometric data cache does not include data for the person, searching, using the second image data for the person, the data storage system to determine whether the data storage system includes data for the person.

4. The system of claim 1, the operations comprising:

receiving, from another biometric data cache for each person in a third group of multiple different people, second image data for the person, wherein the other biometric data cache is a different cache from the biometric data cache; and

storing the received second image data in the biometric data cache.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein receiving the image from the camera comprises:

receiving multiple images that each depict at least a portion of the person;

detecting, for each of the multiple images, at least a portion of the face of the person depicted in the image;

determining, for each of the multiple images, a quality of the face of the person depicted in the image; and

selecting a highest quality image from the multiple images that depicts a higher quality face than the other images in the multiple images, wherein searching the biometric data cache comprises searching the biometric data cache using at least the portion of the detected face from the highest quality image, wherein a higher quality face is better for comparison with other faces than a lower quality face.

6. The system of claim 5, comprising:

the camera, wherein receiving the multiple images comprises receiving each of the multiple images from the camera.

7. The system of claim 5, comprising:

a memory, different from the data storage system and the biometric data cache, to maintain, for each person in the second group, current highest quality image data for the highest quality image of the person and a quality descriptor for the current highest quality image data.

8. The system of claim 7, the operations comprising:

determining that the memory does not include an image associated with the person; and

in response to determining the memory does not include an image associated with the person, storing, in the memory, image data for the highest quality image as new current highest quality image data.

9. The system of claim 8, the operations comprising:

in response to the determination that the biometric data cache does not include data for the person, storing, in the biometric data cache, the image data for the highest quality image.

10. The system of claim 8, the operations comprising:

in response to the determination that the biometric data cache includes data for the person, determining whether a quality of a face depicted in the highest quality image is greater than a quality of a face represented by image data for the person in the biometric data; and

in response to a determination that the quality of the face depicted in the highest quality image is greater than the quality of the face represented by the image data for the person in the biometric data, storing, in the biometric data cache, the image data for the highest quality image.

11. The system of claim 7, the operations comprising:

determining whether the highest quality image from the multiple images or the current highest quality image for the person depicts a higher quality face of the person; and

in response to a determination that the highest quality image from the multiple images depicts a higher quality face of the person than the current highest quality image for the person;

storing, in the biometric data cache, image data for the highest quality image; and

storing, in the memory, the image data for the highest quality image as new current highest quality image data.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein searching the biometric data cache using at least the portion of the face detected from the highest quality image comprises searching the biometric data cache using at least the portion of the detected face from the highest quality image in response to the determination that the highest quality image from the multiple images depicts a higher quality face of the person than the current highest quality image for the person.

13. The system of claim 12, the operations comprising:

receiving multiple second images that each depict at least a portion of the person;

detecting, for each of the multiple second images, at least a portion of the face of the person in the second image;

determining, for each of the multiple second images, a quality of the face of the person depicted in the second image;

selecting a highest quality second image from the multiple second images that depicts a higher quality face of the person than the other images in the multiple second images;

determining that the highest quality second image and the current highest quality image data, stored in the memory, are for the same person;

determining that data for the highest quality second image depicts a lower quality face for the person than the current highest quality image data for the person; and

in response to a determination that the data for the highest quality second image depicts a lower quality face for the person than the current highest quality image data for the person;

discarding the highest quality image;

maintaining the current highest quality image data for the person in the memory; and

not searching the biometric data cache using the highest quality image.

14. The system of claim 1, the operations comprising:

determining a closest match for the person in the data storage system in response to searching the data storage system based on the detected face of the person, wherein storing the image data for the person in the biometric data cache comprises storing the image data and information about the closest match in the biometric data cache.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein storing the image data for the person in the biometric data cache comprises:

determining that the biometric data cache includes image data for a maximum quantity of people;

determining particular image data with an older time stamp than the other image data in the biometric data cache; and

removing, from the biometric data cache, data for a second person represented by the image data with the older time stamp than the other image data in the biometric data cache.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein storing the image data for the person in the biometric data cache comprises:

determining that the biometric data cache includes image data for a maximum quantity of people;

determining particular image data in the biometric data cache that was least recently accessed compared to image data in the biometric data cache for the other people in the second group of multiple different people; and

removing, from the biometric data cache, the particular image data.

17. The system of claim 1, the operations comprising:

determining particular image data in the biometric data cache that was accessed more than a predetermined period of time ago; and

removing the determined particular image data from the biometric data cache.

18. The system of claim 1, the operations comprising:

receiving, for at least one person of interest, second image data for the person;

storing the received second image data in the biometric data cache; and

storing, for each person of interest, data flagging the corresponding second image data as depicting a person of interest.

19. The system of claim 18, the operations comprising:

receiving a second image;

detecting, in the second image, a second face of a second person;

determining, using the received second image, second image data for the second person;

searching, using the second image data for the second person, the biometric data cache;

in response to searching the biometric data cache, determining that the second person is flagged as a person of interest in the biometric data cache; and

discarding the second image to prevent further processing of the second image.

20. The system of claim 19, the operations comprising:

determining that the second person is an employee of a particular entity using data for the person in the biometric data cache in response to determining that the second person is flagged as a person of interest, wherein discarding the second image to prevent further processing of the second image comprises discarding the second image to prevent further processing of the second image in response to a determination that the second person is an employee of the particular entity.

21. The system of claim 18, the operations comprising:

receiving a second image;

detecting, in the second image, a second face of a second person;

determining, using the received second image, second image data for the second person;

searching, using the second image data for the second person, the biometric data cache;

in response to searching the biometric data cache, determining that the second person is flagged as a person of interest in the biometric data cache; and

sending an alert message with information about the second person.

24. The system of claim 5, wherein determining, for each of the multiple images, the quality of the face of the person depicted in the image comprises determining, for each of the multiple images, the quality of the face of the person depicted in the image using at least one of an image data quality for image data of the face of the person, an angle of the face of the person, lighting of the face of the person, features of the face of the person that most align with a reference image used to search the data storage system, a likelihood that the face of the person is actually a face, or a likelihood that the features of the face of the person may be compared to features of other faces.

22. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing instructions executable by a data processing apparatus and upon such execution cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:

receiving an image from a camera;

detecting, in the received image, a face of a person;

determining, using the received image, image data for the person based on the detected face of the person;

searching, using the image data for the person, a biometric data cache, the biometric data cache configured to maintain, for a first group of multiple different people, image data for each person in the first group, each person in the first group having at least a threshold likelihood of being within a field of view of a camera;

in response to searching the biometric data cache, determining whether the biometric data cache includes data for the person;

in response to a determination that the biometric data cache includes data for the person, using the data from the biometric data cache to determine an identifier for the person; and

in response to a determination that the biometric data cache does not include data for the person;

searching a data storage system based on the detected face of the person to determine whether the data storage system includes data for the person, the data storage system configured to maintain, for a second group of multiple different people that is different than the first group, biometric data for each of the multiple different people, wherein the biometric data cache is different from the data storage system and the first group of multiple different people includes fewer people than the second group of multiple different people; and

storing the image data for the person in the biometric data cache.

23. A computer-implemented method comprising:

for each of two or more images;

receiving the image from a camera;

detecting, in the received image, a face of a person;

determining, using the received image, image data for the person based on the detected face of the person;

searching, using the image data for the person, a biometric data cache, the biometric data cache configured to maintain, for a first group of multiple different people, image data for each person in the first group, each person in the first group having at least a threshold likelihood of being within a field of view of a camera; and

in response to searching the biometric data cache, determining whether the biometric data cache includes data for the person;

for each of one or more first images from the two or more images in response to a determination that the biometric data cache includes data for the person depicted in the respective first image, using the data from the biometric data cache to determine an identifier for the person; and

for each of one or more second images from the two or more images in response to a determination that the biometric data cache does not include data for the person depicted in the respective second image;

searching a data storage system based on the detected face of the person to determine whether the data storage system includes data for the person, the data storage system configured to maintain, for a second group of multiple different people that is different than the first group, biometric data for each of the multiple different people, wherein the biometric data cache is different from the data storage system and the first group of multiple different people includes fewer people than the second group of multiple different people; and

storing the image data for the person in the biometric data cache.