CARIBBEAN ISLAND OF DOMINICA DIPLOMATIC PASSPORT IMAGE IS AN EFFORT TO DEFEAT FACIAL RECOGNITION SOFTWARE ?

Take a close look at the image on this Commonwealth of Dominica diplomatic passport. You should recognize the face; it is Alireza Monfared, the suspected Iranian intelligence agent who, with Reza Zarrab, and Babak Zanjani, ran the multi-billion dollar Iran oil-for-gold sanctions scheme. He is currently being held, indefinitely, in a Tehran prison, facing the death penalty, after Iranian agents took him into custody in the Caribbean, on corruption charges.

Why is the image a drawing, instead of a photograph? You can clearly see that his Iranian passport, which contains a photo, betrays the fact that the drawing is a little bit off from a true life image.

Now look at his son's Dominica CBI passport; even he has a photograph.

For these reasons, we must assume that Dominica assisted Monfared in an attempt to make his passport confusing to facial recognition software programs. Perhaps someone should tell the individuals in Roseau, at the Citizenship by Investment Unit (CIU) that facial recognition software can identify, and has been used specifically for, identifying images that appear in painted portraits, through the application of facial recognition algorithms.

In fact, facial recognition software has been used, successfully, to identify an unknown subject in some of the world's great paintings and portraits. Many paintings, over the course of time, pass through many hands, and in the case of some, the names of subjects, as well as minor figures, are lost. Facial recognition software is now employed to identify unknown faces in portrait art.

Lorenzo de Medici

The next time some bright soul in the East Caribbean CBI states thinks that he can outwit facial recognition software platforms, through portraits, and colour drawings, of dodgy CBI passport holders, he might want to reconsider.