AI facial recognition can find out who your friends are based on surveillance footage

The San Jose-based tech company Vintra, which delivers "AI-powered video analytics," has developed facial recognition software that identifies who a person's friends and acquaintances may be through "correlation analysis" and "co-appearance" technology that scans surveillance footage.

According to Tech Xplore, Vintra's CEO, Brent Boekestein, said in a presentation of the software last year, "You can go up here and create a target, based off of this guy, and then see who this guy's hanging out with. You can really start building out a network."

"96 percent of the time, there's no event that security's interested in but there's always information that the system is generating," Boekestein added.

The software uses a method that captures the image of a subject, scans through older video of said subject, and then uses an algorithm to sort out who has appeared with the subject and with how much frequency. 

Boekestein's company presented the new AI-driven software last year at the surveillance research group IPVM's Video Analytics Show, and sold it as part of a package of tools used for video analysis. 

IPVM's director of government research, Conor Healy, said Vintra's technology could be implemented in a "more basic version" of how China uses similar software.

Co-appearance technology is currently used by China to track citizens, but Vintra is the first Western company to offer the technology for purchase and use in the US.

Some police departments, the IRS, Moderna, and the San Francisco 49ers have all used Vintra's video analysis tools but neither denied nor acknowledged using the co-appearance function, according to the LA Times.

In a statement, the IRS said they use Vintra software "to more efficiently review lengthy video footage for evidence while conducting criminal investigations." 

Jarod Kasner, an assistant police chief from Kent, Washington, confirmed that his police force uses Vintra software and said, "We're always looking for technology that can assist us because it's a force multiplier." 

He added "we just want to make sure we're within the boundaries to make sure we are doing it right and professionally," and noted that Washington is one US state that restricts facial recognition technology. There are no federal restrictions on using such software in law enforcement, although several states have implemented them on their own.

A surveillance technology specialist with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Clare Garvie, said "it's an open question" if the software as it relates to facial recognition violates the rights of free assembly protected by the constitution.