WTFatwa: Terrorists Might Need Nose Jobs
by Sumayyah Meehan3/9/10 - 2:55 PM
By Sumayyah Meehan
March 9, 2010
The UK Telegraph is reporting that potential terrorists, and even common criminals, have a new threat to worry about when trying to evade capture and it’s as plain as the nose on their faces. That’s right, new technology recently unveiled by British scientists places great emphasis on “nose analysis” as a credible means of identification for criminals.
Known as “PhotoFace”, the system takes a series of photographs of the subject’s nose using various lighting, angles and shadows - think “Top Model” for your schnoz, minus (hopefully) berating from Tyra. Afterwards the data is fed into software that pinpoints the exact nose specifications.
Unlike fingerprints, which can be thwarted by using gloves, it’s more difficult for a suspect to conceal his or her nose. Head researcher for the project, Dr Adrian Evans, told the Telegraph: “Noses are prominent facial features, and yet their use as a biometric has been largely unexplored. We wanted to find out how good they could be at recognizing individuals from a database.”
Now, I know what you cynics out there are thinking - what’s to stop these ambitious little crime-fiends from a little ‘nip-tuck’? After all, dedication is dedication. Still, for career criminals (Heidi Montag not included), repeat procedures are not an option since they are painful and often result in a total nasal collapse. Plus, with recuperation time and the cost of plastic surgery, most might discover that crime does not pay out as much as it used to.
Although the nose technology is still in its infancy, researchers of the project are currently building up a nifty nose database to perfect the system so that it can not only pick certain noses from a “nose line-up” (gross pun not intended), but also recognize noses from members of the same family. Streisands - probably wanna keep your criminal activity on the DL. Just sayin’.
Source: Telegraph
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