Animetrics a high-tech facial recognition software company may have been used to help ID bombing suspects.
Conway, NH - The president of a local high-tech facial recognition software company was recently interviewed by Fox News about its possible role in helping law enforcement agencies in the days following the Boston Marathon bombings of April 15.
Animetrics president and CEO Paul Schuepp said he was interviewed by Fox News' Greta Van Susterin on her “On the Record” program Wednesday evening and he was featured again Thursday demonstrating the company's ForensicaGPS software's capabilities for three-dimensional facial recognition and its possible use by law enforcement officials investigating the Boston Marathon bombings.
“I was called Tuesday for an interview in Biometric Update, and they asked me questions about how our software might be used. Fox News saw that, and they called me, saying that Greta would like to interview me,” said Schuepp.
He drove down to Boston Wednesday, and was interviewed under a canopy tent at a corner of Boston Common near the crime scene on Boylston Street.
“The correspondent and producer were there, and I was to be on at 10:30 p.m., as Greta's show airs from 10 to 11 p.m. Greta, who was in Washington, D.C., was to ask me some questions over a four- to five-minute span, but then at the same exact time, she got the call about the explosion at the fertilizer plant in Texas, so she had to cut me short. She asked me two questions and published it on her video site,” said Schuepp.
The correspondent was interested in learning more, however, so he and fellow crew members came Thursday to Schuepp's friend's condo in Charlestown where Schuepp was staying.
“They spent an hour with me,” said Schuepp, “and pulled together an almost four-minute segment which aired Thursday night. During the segment, I demonstrated the software on my PC and was able to explain how facial recognition analysis was being used by the FBI to try and identify the faces shown in photographs from the crime scene.”
The FBI uses Animetrics' software at its forensic laboratory in Quantico, Va. In addition, Schuepp said, the company donated facial recognition software last week after the bombings to the FBI's National Crime Information Center in Clarksburg, W. Va.
“They have a facial identification unit there,” said Schuepp. “They are in the process of getting licensed software from us, but due to logistics, they had not gotten them yet. We talked with them and allowed them to download it for use for free. I am not sure they used it, but I do know they downloaded it and got it running.”
The company's software is able to take a two-dimensional photograph of a subject and convert it to a three-dimensional model.
From the three-dimensional model, a close match can be made.
http://www.conwaydailysun.com/index.php/newsx/local-news/106744-animetrics-3-d-software-possibly-used-to-id-boston-marathon-bombing-suspects