Facial recognition: Our new first line of defense

At around 1 pm on a cloudy day in April 2014, Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., 74, pulled into the rear parking lot of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and opened fire. Shouting anti-Semitic slurs, he shot dead Dr. William Lewis Corporon, 69, and his grandson, Reat Griffin Underwood, 14, before fleeing for the nearby Jewish geriatric center, Village Shalom. There, he murdered 53-year-old Terri LaManno. 

Miller told the Kansas City Star in an interview after his arrest that he conducted reconnaissance missions of the JCC and Village Shalom in the days before the shootings. But what might have happened if the security protocols at those sites were more advanced? 

A new technology endorsed by the Jewish Community Centers Association of North America (JCCA) could play a key role in preventing future attacks. Earlier this year, JCCA announced FST Biometrics, an Israeli developer of In Motion Identification (IMID) technology for biometric identification, as its preferred identity management vendor. 

“JCC managers are challenged with finding the right balance to create safe spaces for fun, sport, and education, while also ensuring that their facilities are functioning optimally and creating a welcoming environment,” said Arie Melamed, chief marketing officer of FST Biometrics.

FST was founded in 2007 by Israel Defense Forces Maj.-Gen. Aharon Ze’evi Farkash, the former head of Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate.

“Farkash would visit the Erez checkpoint [from Gaza into Israel] and he saw that Palestinians were standing in the cue to enter Israel for four, five, or even six hours,” explained Melamed. “The reason was security. The military was trying to make sure that no one passing through the checkpoint was a terrorist or on a watch list.”

The more Farkash watched the process, the more he realized that there must be a technology available that would ensure security and improve efficiency.

IMID utilizes a combination of facial recognition and body behavior, ties it to a database of information, and has the ability to simultaneously incorporate voice recognition by request.