Kakao Enterprise Ranks First in Global AI Facial Recognition Competition

by Lee Seungjin

Published 23 Jun.2022 08:10(KST)

Updated 15 Mar.2023 18:42(KST)

Kakao Enterprise Ranks First in Global AI Facial Recognition Competition

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Kakao Enterprise has ranked first in the world’s most prestigious technology competition in the field of artificial intelligence facial recognition.

Kakao Enterprise announced on the 23rd that it secured first place worldwide in the 1:1 verification “Kiosk” category of the “Face Recognition Vendor Test (FRVT)” hosted by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

The FRVT, the world’s top-level competition in the field of facial recognition, measures the performance of automatic facial recognition algorithms used in civil, judicial, and national security areas such as immigration inspection through facial information comparison and detection of illegal passport duplication.

The Kiosk category, which took first place, deals with images where the face is distorted and occluded downward, making it a more challenging field compared to other categories. The company explained that this achievement by Kakao Enterprise in a category requiring advanced artificial intelligence (AI) facial recognition technology is a remarkable and highly valuable result in the global AI industry.

In the “Immigration Inspection” category, which ranked second, the difference from the leading company was only 0.0001, and Kakao Enterprise ranked 4th in the “Visa Immigration Inspection” category and 4th in the “Upper Body” category, placing in the top 5 in four categories.

The technology used by Kakao Enterprise in this FRVT 1:1 verification is applied to the facial recognition-based access system “Walkthrough” at Kakao Enterprise’s headquarters. Based on these results, Kakao Enterprise plans to further advance its facial recognition model to improve accuracy compared to before and sequentially provide services such as smart cities, intelligent CCTV, and intelligent control based on this technology.

Baek Sang-yeop, CEO of Kakao Enterprise, said, “This achievement is a very meaningful result that not only widely publicizes Kakao’s technological capabilities but also elevates the national technological competitiveness in the field of AI core technologies to the next level.” He added, “As a leading domestic IT platform company, Kakao Enterprise plans to enhance its technological leadership not only in facial recognition but also in various AI fields such as voice recognition, conversation, natural language processing, search, recommendation, prediction, and optimization, and connect these to services in various industries to contribute to enhancing the national industrial competitiveness.”