A new product from Johnson Controls, the smart building technologies giant, is introducing a facial recognition system that can notify stores, schools and other venues of the presence of an undesirable person.
With the AI-enabled system, retail businesses, venues or educational institutions can receive mobile notifications when terminated employees, a returning suspected shoplifter, or person of interest, comes back to a property.
The system, ExacqVision Facial Matching, uses artificial intelligence to capture and automatically enter facial profiles into a database. If that person of interest returns to the site, the person's face is compared against other recognized visitors — even if the person is wearing a hat, glasses and has facial hair. Once the profile is confirmed, users of the software can receive a push notification through the Exacq mobile app with the date, time and image of the person of interest.
“Leveraging these tools for a complete automated detection and notification system significantly lessens the burden on staff who have a whole host of other responsibilities to fulfill," said Ryan Hulse, senior product manager for Exacq, in a news release from Johnson Controls.
Johnson Controls is based in Cork, Ireland, but many of its operating functions remain at its corporate campus in Glendale and at offices in downtown Milwaukee. The company generates more than $31 billion in annual revenue and employs 105,000 people in more than 150 countries, including over 2,100 in the Milwaukee area.
In a recent, exclusive interview with the Milwaukee Business Journal, Johnson Controls CEO George Oliver talked about the company expanding its portfolio of building products following the sale of its power solutions business.
"We’ve been reinvesting heavily both in new products and new capabilities," he said. "We’ve expanded our sales force by 1,500 people because we have the confidence that as we’re developing new capabilities and new solutions that obviously we need the front end to be able to work with customers and deploy those solutions."
