A variety of applications for computer vision tools are starting to emerge — driven by a combination of imagination and practicality.
Across industries like healthcare, manufacturing, automotive, e-commerce, security, warehousing and law enforcement, computer vision use cases are currently finding a home in applications like fingerprint matching, facial recognition, X-ray scans, autonomous vehicles, robotics, online shopping, cashier-less store purchasing, food inspection and detecting counterfeit luxury goods.
“The technology is … more advanced than people realize,” said Ray Wang, an analyst at Constellation Research. But with “extremely powerful” computer vision tools, he added, come issues of privacy, specifically in areas of surveillance — for example, corporate security applications to track visitors in areas of a building considered sensitive, retail applications to identify shoplifters in stores and police monitoring of people in public places.
“All this is happening in real time,” Wang cautioned. “It’s very wild. Your privacy is at risk here big time because you’re constantly being surveilled.”
