Many bold claims were made about facial recognition technology in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S. Vendors said facial recognition could spot wanted criminals in a crowd and perhaps stop terrorists from entering the country. The reality was quite different as it turns out that the technology works best with cooperative subjects and good quality images.

Sensory launched TrulySecure 2.0, an updated version of its speaker verification and face recognition solution for mobile, tablets and PCs that enables multimodal biometric authentication.

PotBot is a medical cannabis recommendation engine developed by Potbotics Inc. The company is working on a kiosk that will use facial recognition to identify and then dispense different strains of marijuana to patients.

Swipe your payment card and then take a selfie as an additional authentication factor? This is MasterCard’s plan as pilots are rolling out. While other are trying to remove friction from the authentication process, the payments giant seems to be adding it to take advantage of the selfie craze.

At this point you’ve seen the commercial touting how a toddler won’t have to remember passwords but will be able to login with a smile. Windows Hello bakes biometrics into the latest Microsoft operating system and it’s facial recognition has stood up against some early tests with identical twins.

Miami Dade Animal Services is using facial biometrics to reunite lost dogs with their owners. The shelter reports five reunions since it deployed the Finding Rover facial recognition technology in March. Dogs arriving at the shelter get their pictures taken and uploaded into the system. Users who download the app and register their pets can then search for found dogs that may be at the shelter.

Facial recognition technology is making headlines again as it’s being used by social networking sites to automatically tag individuals but the technology is also being used by churches to track attendees as well as some companies to enable access to computers and networks. As facial recognition is used more often the federal government needs to think about regulation to protect consumer privacy, according to the GAO.

Some Sunday worshipers are being tracked without ever signing an attendance book thanks to facial recognition software designed especially for churches. Churchix is a tracking software that identifies people in videos and photos. Its main purpose is to measure attendance at an event, like Sunday morning services.

Tractica examines the iris biometric market and its growth; NEC Corp. selected by the Brazilian National Tax Collection Agency to provide NeoFace Watch facial recognition technology for 14 international airports throughout Brazil; the FIDO Alliance entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Bluetooth Special Interest Group to use Bluetooth Smart as an alternative to a USB dongle for authentication.

Facial recognition biometrics is experiencing a period of growth; the FIDO Alliance adds NFC and Bluetooth to the FIDO 1.0 specifications; Precise Biometrics partnered with Fingerprint Cards to have Precise BioMatch Mobile integrated into two new smartphones from Chinese manufacturers.