Facial recognition was created in the early 1960’s by Woodrow Wilson Bledsoe, an American mathematician, computer scientist, and prominent educator. From all reports Woodrow’s research into facial recognition started out as problem solving venture but it wasn’t long before government agencies saw the value and began funding some of Woodrow’s research projects. One such project involved helping law enforcement sift through mug shots to identify a match.

Woodrow probably didn’t forsee all the use cases for facial recognition at the time. Who could blame him? Video surveillance was basically non-existent in the 1960’s, there were no smartphones, no access control systems, and no social media which are some of the more popular use cases for facial recognition today.

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