Russian tech firm wins US intelligence agency's facial recognition software competition.

Russian tech firm won a competition held by
US intelligence on facial recognition iStock

Russian software developers NTechlabs have won two categories of a facial recognition challenge set by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The competition was held in collaboration with the National Institute for Standards and Technology, which will reportedly release a detailed report on the event soon.

NTechlabs won under two categories — "Identification Speed" and "Verification Accuracy" — the software's ability to match one picture with another and verify if they are of the same person — reports Defense One (DO). Chinese tech firm Yitu took home the prize for "Identification Accuracy" — the ability of the program to match a face to an identity.

IARPA's competition reportedly involved using software to match faces in the wild including passively picking up cues from security cam footage.

The win by these firms does not mean that there is any formal collaboration with the Federal government, says the report. However, CEO of NTechlabs Mikhail Ivanov has said that this could help the company penetrate the target market and help them score contracts with public safety groups and security firms all over the world.

NTechlabs infamously created a software called "FindFace" to help people match random photographs of strangers with their VKontakte profiles — Russia's version of Facebook.

Full story at IB Times.

By Immanuel Jotham.