Winona Ryder mistaken for Osama bin Laden?
State-of-the-art facial scanners reported a failure
Posted: April 08, 2009
10:09 pm Eastern

© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Editor's Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports.


LONDON – Scientists from the British intelligence agency MI5 have discovered that their state-of-the-art facial scanners to spot terrorists at airports have failed, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

The scanners, which cost over 1 million British pounds each to develop, had been intended to cut passenger queues at airports.

The devices have been installed at major airports in Britain and are designed to check passengers' faces against their digital passport images.




The scanner is based on the computer-driven Facial Analysis Comparison and Elimination System (FACES). The system is derived from 49 characteristics each categorized on a one-to-four scale. FACES is designed to make 15 million binary yes/no decisions in a second.

The devices used at airports are interlinked to other computers, which can do check searches and make a staggering 40 million binary decisions a second.

Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.

The linkage includes MI5 and MI6 computers and those at the nation's communications brain trust, GCHQ.

In theory, the airport device could provide backup from its facial image of a passenger to all that is known about the person that is held on other government software. This information can range from a driving license to a criminal conviction.

But the airport machines have developed a serious glitch, and some of the results have been startling.

An MI5 leaked memo to the Home Office, in charge of all British airport security, claimed the face scanners installed at Manchester airport revealed that the actress Winona Ryder showed a 52 percent likeness to Osama bin Laden in terms of the facial characteristics the machine was programmed to select.

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