Minority Report moves step closer as Lord Sugar launches face recognition adverts The media company has launched OptimEyes, which will be used in more than 6,000 of its screens to target over 50m people in the UK, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, UAE, Oman, Kenya, Angola and South Africa. However, the majority of the screens, some 3,561, are in the UK in doctors' surgeries, hospitals, convenience stores, petrol forecourts, Halifax banks, airports and train stations. Echoing the 2002 film Minority Report, in which Tom Cruise is beseiged by adverts that are tailored just for him, the OptimEyes system works via an inbuilt camera in each screen that detects individuals even when they are not looking at the advert. This can then be relayed to the advertiser to ensure it shows an advert best suited to passers-by. "This software is able to identify, measure and then combine the following characteristics for a more complete picture of the audience: Number of possible viewers, number of actual viewers, age, sex, location and time," the company says on its webiste. For example, Amscreen says the target audience for screens in GP surgeries and hospitals will be "pregnant women, mums with kids and the over-55s," while others will target just men and those who enjoy sports. Despite fears that the technology, created by face detection business Quividi, is encroaching on peiople's privacy, Amscreen's chief executive believes brands "deserve to know" who people are. Simon Sugar, Lord Sugar's son, said: "It is time for a step-change in advertising - brands deserve to know not just an estimation of how many eyeballs are viewing their adverts, but who they are, too. Through the creation of our new platform, OptimEyes, advertisers will have instant access to all of this information, meaning we can deliver the type of insight that only online has previously been able to achieve. The product comes less than a week after Sky Deutschland revealed it has developed technology to transfer adverts from train windows directly and silently into commuters' heads.