Samsung goes with FaceFirst

RIDGEFIELD PARK, N.J.—As part of its new strategic partner initiative, Samsung Techwin America is integrating megapixel cameras with facial recognition provider FaceFirst.

“What we want to do is take advantage of technology [such as FaceFirst] and in return, provide an entrée to a powerful brand, Samsung,” Frank De Fina, SVP of sales and marketing for Samsung Techwin America, told Security Systems News.

Other strategic partners include storage provider Pivot3 and VMS manufacturer Milestone. Samsung in February made a financial investment in Pivot3. Asked if Samsung is open to investing in other technology companies, De Fina said yes.

“We are not averse to acquiring, merging or taking an equity position in a technology company,” he said. That's an efficient way for Samsung to increase its technology footprint, De Fina said. “Our main strength is that we do everything from a camera standpoint in-house. That doesn't mean we can't improve [our offerings] with other technology.”

De Fina said Samsung is on the bandwagon with the “total solutions idea” where the company is fully integrated on a technology level first with partners. This includes ensuring that those partners are trained on Samsung products and have their products displayed at Samsung's showroom here and in Tyson's Corner, Va.

De Fina said the old idea was to bring business to integrators, but Samsung's new strategic partner initiative enables integrators to bring Samsung and partners in earlier in the deal process. De Fina said that creates “a stronger proposition to the end user.”

FaceFirst is “strong in retail, airports and hospitals and is getting [specified] in numerous projects,” De Fina said.

FaceFirst “features cloud-ready software and offers functionality that is affordable, scalable and can be custom-configured to specific business requirements,” according to Samsung. The system can match “client records at the rate of millions of comparisons per second.” When a biometric facial image is matched with a watch list photograph, alerts are sent to “pre-provisioned computers, cellphones or cash registers,” according to Samsung.

“By leveraging Samsung's powerful megapixel imaging technology with FaceFirst's expertise in software development and integration, the FaceFirst platform is primed to detect and defeat potentially dangerous or criminal activities,” said Joseph Saad, FaceFirst director of business development, in a prepared statement.