THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Still shying away from wearing a facemask while out in the public? Beware, the police may be watching you. As people continue to ditch facemasks even in the wake of rising Covid-19 infections, the police department is planning to use a new software to track down the defaulters.
The software, which will be installed in traffic cameras, will scan the faces of passersby and identify those who are not covered adequately. The freeze-frames from the video footage can be used later to identify and penalise those not wearing masks. As per police reports, more than 2,000 cases of people refusing to wear masks are reported daily in the state.
The software will help capture the facial image of those without facemasks. The artificial intelligence-powered cameras will detect the registration number of vehicles so the defaulters can be easily identified. However, the software offers limited assistance in the case of pedestrians. The identification of on-foot defaulters need to be done manually as of now, as the police only have a limited database.
According to a source, the Cyberdome is using a simple technology driven by AI to develop the software. “This is an altered version of the software being used to detect helmet-less riders and drivers without seatbelts. However, if the software needs to be successful in detecting defaulters among pedestrians, a huge data bank is required.
The captured facial image needs to be matched with images in repository. We do not have such a facility, as our data base is not that extensive. However, the images can be manually verified,” said the source.