BACKGROUND

The present disclosure relates generally to facial recognition. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to managing facial recognition identification data gathering and storage.

This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present techniques, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.

Many venues, such as theme parks, concert venues, and the like, manage access rights for large groups of visitors. Such venues often utilize traditional queuing systems to control access and manage throughput. For example, traditional paper ticketing systems are often utilized to confirm access rights, retrieve guest information, and/or control the number of guests admitted to the venue within a particular timeframe. More modern techniques for confirming access rights, retrieving guest information, and/or controlling the number of admitted guests may involve the use of biometric data, such as fingerprint scanning or facial recognition techniques. Utilizing biometric data may require a large volume of data storage and computational resources, which may increase the computational complexity associated with confirming access rights and controlling the number of admitted people. As a result, confirming access rights by way of these modern techniques may result in delays and/or inaccurate confirmations (e.g., false positives). The computational complexity associated with these modern techniques is complicated as the number of guests in attendance increases, for example, during periods of seasonal popularity.

Use of biometric data may be appealing for confirming access rights and for controlling the number of admitted people because it does not usually require a guest to carry a traditional paper ticket. However, there is a need to improve existing techniques for efficiently managing the large volume of biometric data, the implementation of which may be difficult to practice and to coordinate in various large venues.

SUMMARY

Certain embodiments commensurate in scope with the originally claimed subject matter are summarized below. These embodiments are not intended to limit the scope of the disclosure, but rather these embodiments are intended only to provide a brief summary of certain disclosed embodiments. Indeed, the present disclosure may encompass a variety of forms that may be similar to or different from the embodiments set forth below.

The present disclosure provides systems and methods that may increase facial recognition throughput, reduce time to process facial recognition access/requests, reduce the amount of facial recognition data used for a search, and/or improve the accuracy of verifying facial identities of guests by reducing search data as a person traverses through a theme park. Systems and methods of the present disclosure include storing facial identification data in a theme park database as guests enter a theme park and removing facial identification data in the theme park database as guests exit the theme park. In this manner, the theme park database includes only facial identification data of guests inside the theme park, and not of guests who have left the theme park, thereby reducing the size of the theme park database as guests exit the theme park. Similarly, this approach may be implemented within each of various areas of the theme park, such that the size of databases associated with each area of the park only includes entries corresponding to guests in the particular park area.

In an embodiment, a system for increasing facial recognition throughput includes an image capture device associated with an area within a venue to capture a facial image. The venue is associated with a first database, and the area is associated with a second database. The system also includes a computing system communicatively coupled to the image capture device. The computing system includes processing circuitry and a memory device communicatively coupled to the processing circuitry. The memory device stores instructions executable to cause the processing circuitry to perform operations. The operations include receiving the facial image and determining a sufficient correlation between the facial image and an entry of a plurality of entries of facial identification data stored in the first database, and in response to the facial image sufficiently correlating to the entry, adding the facial image to the second database.

In an embodiment, a method executed via processing circuitry is provided. The method includes determining entrance facial identification data from a first facial image captured by an entrance image capture device positioned at an entrance to a venue. The method includes storing the entrance facial identification data in a venue database that stores a plurality of facial identification data entries. The method includes transferring the entrance facial identification data from the venue database and into an area database associated with an area of the venue in response to a second facial image captured at an entrance to the area of the venue sufficiently correlating to the entrance facial identification data. The method includes receiving, via the processing circuitry, a third facial image captured by an exit image capture device positioned at an exit of the venue and determining a sufficient correlation between exit facial identification data associated with the third facial image and an entry of the plurality of facial identification data entries. The method includes removing the entry of the plurality of entrance facial identification data entries from the venue database in response to determining that the exit facial identification data sufficiently correlates to the entry of the plurality of facial identification data entries.

In an embodiment, a facial recognition system for increasing facial recognition throughput includes a primary image capture device configured to capture a first facial image at an entrance to a theme park and a plurality of secondary image capture devices corresponding to a plurality of areas of the theme park, such that the plurality of secondary image capture devices capture a secondary facial image at an entrance to a corresponding area of the plurality of areas of the theme park. The facial recognition system further includes a storage device that includes a theme park database of facial identification data associated with the first facial image and a plurality of park area databases. Each park area database of the plurality of park area databases is associated with a respective area of the plurality of areas, such that each park area database of the plurality of park area databases includes facial identification data associated with a respective secondary facial image. The facial recognition system further includes a computing system communicatively coupled to the primary image capture device, the plurality of secondary image capture devices, and the storage device. The computing system includes processing circuitry, and a memory device storing instructions to cause the processing circuitry to perform operations. The operations include receiving the first facial image to generate corresponding facial identification data and store the corresponding facial identification data in the theme park database. The operations include receiving a particular secondary facial image captured by a particular secondary image capture device of the plurality of secondary image capture devices to determine a sufficient correlation between the particular secondary facial image and the corresponding facial identification data, such that the particular secondary image capture device is associated with a particular area of the plurality of areas. Furthermore, the operations include adding the corresponding facial identification data from the theme park database to a particular park area database associated with the particular area based on the sufficient correlation.

