Gesture Recognition Is Not Just For Games: Israeli Tech Tracks A Skeleton For Biometric Authentication

Extreme Reality, an Israeli video technology firm, may have found the solution to racial or ethnic profiling in a biometric profiling system that can automatically analyze how an individual moves, based on a “skeletal map” that indicates if an individual is up to no good.

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A biometric system uses quantifiable biological data to discover information about an individual. Such systems are usually part of an authentication or security system, comparing an individual’s information collected from biometric sensors to the information about them in a database. Airports around the world, including Ben-Gurion Airport, have a biometric authentication system that frequent travelers can use to speed up their check-in. Users register and record their biometric profile. When they reach a sensor station at the airport, they can pass through when the sensor determines that their biometric profile matches the one in the database, skipping the long lines at passport control.

This system works well on a voluntary basis, but, unless a government legislates that all citizens submit their biometric information (as Israel is planning to do), biometrics can’t be used to identify individuals in this way. This issue does not even consider foreigners who enter a country and whose profiles are most likely not on record.

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Herzliya-based Extreme Reality has been working in the video technology market for nearly a decade, specializing in creating a 3D effect using 2D cameras. Their software-based solution uses motion analysis based on the skeletal position of an individual and creates a 3D image of them on screen, using standard two-dimensional cameras. The software is very popular in the gaming industry, where Extreme Reality partnered with Sega, the Japanese game maker. Sega and other companies use it in a variety of video games.

What works for games can work for national security. Last month, Extreme Reality revealed its security solution at the International Security Conference & Exposition 2014 in Las Vegas. The system uses pre-installed 2D cameras to analyze an individual’s motions to determine their biometric profile. The profile is the basis for a “skeletal map” of the individual that analyzes the distances between joints in the body and how those joints move in three dimensions.

This article was first published on The Times of Israel and was re-posted with permission. To continue reading this article on the TOI site, click here.