Woody Bledsoe began a project in the 1960s that required human hands to map every face. A person used a graphics tablet to mark coordinates like pupil centers and eye corners on photographs.
Takeo Kanade published the first detailed book on the subject in 1977 after demonstrating a system in 1970 that located anatomical features without human intervention. His machine calculated distance ratios between the chin and other points automatically.
The Chinese Skynet project initiated in 2006 deployed twenty million cameras capable of real-time recognition nationwide. Qingdao police identified twenty-five wanted suspects at an international beer festival within twenty minutes in 2017.
Rite Aid ceased usage and switched off cameras after reporting in July 2020 revealed racial disparities in store selection. Cathy Langley described the technology as feature matching while Bob Oberosler emphasized improved staff safety before the shutdown.
Facebook shut down its facial recognition system in 2021 deleting face-scan data for over one billion users. Meta Platforms deleted billions of records following societal concerns about unauthorized data collection and privacy violations.