Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

This Strategic Project addresses urgent problems of guarding the safety and security of public places such as city services, including shelters, events and facilities. The key motivations include: (a) the need to develop the next generation biometric-enabled technology solutions for better identity management of city services clients and personnel; (b) the need to enhance the safety by non-invasive detection of health emergencies (such as fever) in shelter clients or at events; (c) the need to develop and test the concept of smart kiosks that provide city service users identification and risk assessment. This Project will involve the joint efforts of the research teams at the University of Calgary (Biometric Technologies Laboratory (BT Lab) and I2Sense Lab) and National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (NTUST) in Taiwan. The University of Calgary team partners with the Calgary Drop-In & Rehab Centre Society (non-for-profit organization), VizWorX Inc. (a Calgary IT Service firm), and NTUST partners with Taiwanese city services. This Proposal addresses acute need of city services that require privacy respecting identity management. In a broader sense, it ushers to society's need of safe and secure places. The team at NTUST will focus on facial and soft biometric technologies for city services, and the University of Calgary team will concentrate on risk assessment using facial biometrics in both visual and infrared spectra, as well as behavioral biometrics. The overall goal of the Project is to create a Platform for efficient support of city services to ensure public safety. Our vision is that the Platform design will evolve from its initial ""check-in point"" biometric-based authentication and behavioral abnormality assessment (such as intoxication or fever) into a smart self-check kiosk with detectors of potential threats to safety and health of other clients and personnel, including check for serial offenders, or calling for a medical emergency. Our long-term goal (beyond this project) is the adaptation of these technologies for various needs of smart city services mandated with maintaining public safety and security.