In its latest effort to weed out welfare cheats, the Department of Social Protection plan to begin using facial-matching software from the beginning of the new year. The software will use photographic identification supplied with all new claims to automatically detect any other claims made by that person.I guess you can tell from the headline that the Examiner doesn't approve. Nevertheless, facial recognition is a pretty good way to catch some welfare cheats.
The technology will also have the ability to compare the supplied image with images stored by other Government bodies such as photos taken for driving licences and passports. The department believes this will help to stamp out dole cheats’ ability to use forged or stolen identities to make multiple claims.
If the photos are already available, running them through a facial recognition engine to search for duplicates doesn't require any new, specialized hardware or add any steps for the people that do the one-on-one work with prospective beneficiaries.
The system Ireland is rolling out is similar ones in use in the United States (i.e. New York) for preventing identity fraud through the issuance of multiple drivers licenses under multiple names to the same person.
