Location: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2100001,00.html
Police use face-mapping tools to identify abuse victims

Wendy McAuliffe

The National Crime Squad (NCS) has confirmed that it will be using
sophisticated facial-mapping software to identify the children depicted
in 60,000 pornographic images obtained through dawn raids on suspected
Internet paedophiles. The raids took place on Wednesday morning and were
part of the biggest ever international crackdown on Internet paedophiles.

British and Scottish police forces executed search warrants on 12 houses
throughout the UK at 06:00 GMT, and seized thousands of files containing
images of children being abused. A source close to the international
investigation, which is dubbed Operation Landmark, told ZDNet UK that the
new software was designed to help trace the whereabouts of the victims
and their abusers.

Detective superintendent Peter Spindler, leading the investigation for
NCS, said, "This operation has sadly and distressingly brought thousands
of new images of abuse to our attention. These young victims need to be
identified and protected as quickly as possible."

The IT company Serco was commissioned to develop the face-recognition
software for NCS following Operation Cathedral -- an international
operation that led to the arrest and imprisonment of the world's largest
Internet paedophile ring, the Wonderland Club. All information gathered
through the help of the new software will be entered into an
international police database. "We hope that the database can be used to
identify children who are being systematically abused for the
gratification of a small but dangerous section of society," Spindler
added.

A combination of existing software has been use to develop the
face-mapping tool, and has been designed according to NCS and Interpol
specifications. "Until now, most of the face-recognition that has been
done on file images has only worked if the picture is exact," said a
source. "A number of police databases already contain hashes of known
paedophile images, but the moment the picture becomes cropped, it no
longer works."

The new software will allow officers at the NCS and the National Hi-Tech
Crime Unit (NHTCU) to identify abused children who may look slightly
different from one picture to another. It will also provide intelligence
on the background in the photos, which could be used to determine the
room in which the photos were taken, and could hence be linked to the
abuser or photographer.

"This is an experimental exercise -- I'm not sure how effective the
software is," the source added.

These latest police swoops were carried out in 19 countries throughout
the night. Twelve British targets were identified through the operation,
and a total of 130 search warrants were executed throughout the four
continents involved.

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