Europe launches ‘gait recognition’ pilot program to monitor border crossings
A European Commission-funded biometric “gait recognition” program to study how to more easily identify people crossing the European Union’s external borders by examining their unique walking styles kicked off Thursday.
The initiative, dubbed the PopEye Project, is supported by a €3.2 million ($3.5 million) grant that covers a three-year pilot testing the technology, according to TechTransfer, a program at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels and a partner on the effort.
Horizon Europe, a European Union funding mechanism for research and innovation, is bankrolling the pilot, according to TechTransfer and a second partner, the Swiss research institute Idiap.
PopEye is experimenting with how to strengthen security at external EU borders by testing “robust biometric technologies for verification and identification,” in combination with gait recognition, according to Idiap.
The technology PopEye will test is designed to allow law enforcement and border authorities to identify and verify “people on the move and without stopping them, at up to 200 (meters) distance,” a post on the Idiap website says.
