BIOMETRIC NOTIFICATION SYSTEM

• US 20150154440A1
• Filed: 02/03/2015
• Published: 06/04/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 07/21/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: FaceFirst, LLC
• Original Assignee: FaceFirst, LLC
• Inventors: Rosenkrantz, Joseph Ethan
• Granted Patent: US 9,245,190 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/51 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/583 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 18/22 Matching criteria, e.g. proximity measures
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/95 structured as a network, e.g. client-server architectures
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/10 Human or animal bodies, e.g. vehicle occupants or pedestrians; Body parts, e.g. hands
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/168 Feature extraction; Face representation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/44 Receiver circuitry for the reception of television signals according to analogue transmission standards H04N5/14 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/18 Closed-circuit television [CCTV] systems, i.e. systems in which the video signal is not broadcast

Abstract

A biometric notification system compares images or indicia of images and where there is a match provides a notification of the same.

Claims

1. A biometric notification system (“

BNS”

) with facial recognition services for identifying a predetermined person using biometrics and notifying at least one user of the system, the system comprising;

an image acquiring system for capturing a first content including a first feature set;

a comparison module and a database of cases, each case comprising a second content and assigned to a case group;

the second content of at least one of the cases including a second feature set of the predetermined person;

one or more matched cases identified when the comparison module finds the first feature set matches with the second feature set of one or more cases; and

,

one or more of plural receiving nodes for receiving a notification component that corresponds to a particular matched case;

wherein (i) case groups are attached to user groups so that one or more user groups intended to receive the notification component can be identified and (ii) receiving nodes are associated with users or user groups so that one or more receiving nodes that serve the intended recipients can be identified.

2. The BNS of claim 1 wherein an intended recipient is a security staff user in a security staff user group associated with a shoplifter case group.

3. The BNS of claim 1 further comprising:

a frame isolator of the image acquiring system that selects a particular frame from multiple frames captured by an image acquisition system video camera, the frame including a face image; and

,

a face image isolator of the image acquisition system that isolates a face image from the particular frame;

wherein the first feature set is derived from the isolated face image.

4. The BNS of claim 2 further comprising:

the comparison module implemented in a computing device;

an account management module for use by a system administrator; and

,

the account management module providing the system administrator with means for granting BNS access to plural users and with means for associating each of the plural users with a receiving node.

5. The BNS of claim 4 wherein the account management module provides the administrator with means to add an image acquisition system and to associate that system with a particular user.

6. The BNS of claim 3 wherein facial recognition services include control and management of information gathered in a real time environment, such as a commercial environment, where face images are isolated from video camera frames.

7. The BNS of claim 6 wherein information derived from the first content is used to enroll a case in the database of cases.

8. The BNS of claim 1 wherein the second content used for matching is a subset of the database second content that is predetermined by the local environment.

9. The BNS of claim 8 further comprising:

plural environments associated with plural case groups;

the first content captured in a particular environment; and

,

wherein the case-case group characterization facilitates the identification of the second content used for matching.

10. The BNS of claim 1 further comprising:

an individual'"'"'s identity included in the notification component; and

,

habits of the identified individual included in the notification component;

wherein determination of the individual'"'"'s identity is facilitated by the first content.

11. The BNS of claim 1 wherein the comparison module determines non-image information that is included in the notification component.

12. The BNS of claim 11 further comprising:

plural categories of non-image information associated with plural case groups; and

,

wherein a non-image information category-case group association is used by the comparison module to determine non-image information that is included in the notification component.

13. The BNS of claim 12 wherein the notification component includes contemporaneous audio captured with the first content.

14. The BNS of claim 3 further comprising:

each case characterized at least in part by a first person'"'"'s name that corresponds with the case face image data; and

,

wherein the notification component includes the name or names of one or more persons known to keep company with the first person.

15. The BNS of claim 14 further comprising:

hardware and software for sending the notification component;

receiving node hardware and software for receiving the notification component; and

,

a digital communications path between the sending and the receiving hardware.

16. The BNS of claim 15 wherein the communications path is for transporting the notification component to the receiving node via Short Message Service (“

SMS”

).

17. The BNS of claim 15 further comprising:

receiving node hardware and software for sending images; and

,

wherein the communications path is a bidirectional communications path used by the receiving node to transport the images.

18. The BNS of claim 15 wherein information derived from one or more of the images is used to enroll a case in the database of cases.

19. The BNS of claim 18 further comprising:

subscription based access to the BNS;

the receiving node located with a BNS subscriber;

the database not located with the BNS subscriber; and

,

the communications path utilizes a wide area network.

20. The BNS of claim 15 further comprising receiving node hardware and software for forwarding a received notification component.

21. The BNS of claim 20 wherein the receiving node forwards the notification component to particular ones of a group of recipients based on the content of the notification component.

22. A biometric-based method of automatically distributing notification components with selected content to selected receiving nodes, the method comprising the steps of:

providing a database of cases, each case characterized at least in part by a biometric data set and a case group;

acquiring an image comprising a biometric data set and a case group;

selecting predetermined cases from the database, the predetermined cases being those database cases whose case group matches that of the image;

comparing the image with the predetermined cases for identifying one or more matching cases;

for each matched case, identifying one or more receiving nodes that will receive a notification component particular to the matched case, where the identification of receiving nodes depends on the case-case group association and at least one of a receiving node-case group association and a receiving node-case association;

for each matched case, identification of the content of the corresponding notification component depends on the case-case group association; and

,

for each matched case, the corresponding notification component is sent to the one or more receiving nodes associated with the case.