People look for an alternative to open-web face search for different reasons. An agency’s counsel may not want to defend a scraped image database in court. A city may have a policy that rules it out. A private business may have learned that its state’s biometric law makes the risk too high.

Whatever brings you here, most comparison lists rank tools on match accuracy and price. Both matter. The question that decides whether a tool is defensible comes first: what is in the database you are searching against?

Two different kinds of face technology

Open-web face search compares a face against images gathered from the public internet. What comes back is a set of similar-looking faces and the pages they were found on. Any one of those images could be someone else’s photo, reposted by someone else, attached to someone else’s name. Some products go further and assemble associates, accounts and personal details around the match, which moves from “is this the same person?” toward building a profile.

Record-bound identification compares only against records law enforcement has already created through due process: bookings, warrants, convictions, registrations and missing-person reports. The question is narrow. Does this person match a specific, verified record?

These are different products for different jobs. The mistake is buying one while believing you have the other.

Six questions to ask any vendor

1. Can you name every source in the comparison set? If the answer includes “publicly available images,” ask which sites, and whether those people consented.
2. Does the set include social media, news photos or scraped images? A yes is a fact your counsel will need before the first search.
3. Is the comparison one-to-one or one-to-many, and when? Confirming that two images show the same person is a different act from searching a face against millions.
4. What happens to the probe image and to non-matches? Ask how long they exist and whether any template is stored.
5. Who reviews a result before anyone acts on it? Look for a trained person, a documented checklist and a rule that a match alone is never grounds for an arrest.
6. How do you handle state biometric law where we operate? Illinois, Texas and Washington have their own statutes, and a growing number of cities set rules of their own.

Where Safience fits

Safience is a record-bound identity service. It is not an open-web search engine and does not try to be.

• UMbRA, the law-enforcement-sourced identity database, draws on law-enforcement records only. The live count is on the UMbRA page. No social media, no news, no commercial data.
• QAPLA one-to-one face comparison lets an investigator confirm whether two images show the same person.
• RTIS, the Real-Time Threat Identification System, tells a facility when someone matching a relevant, verified record is on site, after a trained analyst has reviewed the match.
• RVIS, the Real-Time Victim Identification System, helps identify and locate missing and trafficked people.

Non-matches are deleted immediately and no biometric template is kept. Safience never receives, records or stores operational video.

If your investigation depends on finding a face anywhere on the internet, Safience is not that tool. If it depends on knowing whether a person matches a verified law-enforcement record, and being able to explain exactly how you found out, it is.

For a plain account of what goes into the database and what never does, read What goes into UMbRA.

Frequently asked questions

Is Safience an open-web face search tool?

No. Safience compares only against verified law-enforcement records, so it answers a narrower question with a documented source behind every result.

Can private businesses use Safience?

Yes. Casinos, hospitals, banks and other facilities can receive a reviewed alert when someone on site matches a record relevant to that setting. Search access to UMbRA itself is limited to vetted users with a legal permissible use in support of law enforcement and public safety, under agreement.

Does Safience use social media or scraped photos?

No. Every record comes from a law-enforcement or criminal-justice source.

Does Safience store faces of people who are not a match?

No. A non-matching image is deleted immediately and no biometric template is kept.

Featured photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash.