As mentioned in the latest Tek, face scanners are in growing use. I am wondering just how easy it is to get your hand on facial recognition software. I imagine that various entities have the need to have such a software running locally so as to reduce the amount of information that gets transferred from remote surveillance areas (vs sending all information to a center to be run against facial recognition software there). Are there things like facial recognition (and maybe iris scanners) available to the public? I imagine that the open source community has developed something over the years (it doesn't seem all that hard to develop compared to some of the other things that they have managed). However, because of the nature of such a software, it wouldn't be too surprising to find out that it is "illegal" or frowned upon for private entities to have something along these lines. If it could be used by individuals, it could have some useful applications such as iris and face scanners for security purposes, and things like that. But I am rambling now. Does anyone know of anything or is it a more hush-hush field?