Over the past few years, demand from the surveillance market and huge spending by governments across the globe on biometric technologies has caused the facial recognition technology market to become more accurate, less costly and significantly more mainstream.

More accurate technology and the brighter economic future it can bring has led to more traction and investment from the commercial sector. The development of 3-D face recognition technology, backed by improved imaging solutions like middleware and fast analytics, has helped the technology to overcome its traditional flaws such as poor results in low lights, pose variation and image reconstruction 

It isn't just the government looking for new ways to spy on terrorists or Associated Press reporters, various opportunities exist in the consumer electronics and handheld devices segments. We could also see innovative cloud services based on face recognition technologies -  anonymous face analysis. 

The report "Facial Recognition Market: Global advancements, Emerging Applications, Business Models and Worldwide Market Forecast and Analysis (2013 - 2018)" defines and segments the global facial recognition market with analysis and forecasting of the global revenues. It also identifies drivers and restraints for this market with insights on trends, opportunities and challenges.

 The report has segmented the face recognition market by types of technologies and solutions, components (hardware, software and services), industry verticals or end-users and regions. The face recognition technology and solutions segment comprises of 2D, 3D, thermal, emotion, mobile and forensic technology. The software segment is further segmented by face recognition algorithms/SDK, middleware, database, modeling and analytic software. Under the services segment, the report covers consulting and cloud-based services. The technology and components markets, along with each of their sub-segments are further bifurcated by regions. Regions covered include North America (NA), Europe, Asia-Pacific APAC, Middle East and Africa (MEA), and Latin America (LA). 

 The report says the global Facial Recognition Market is estimated to grow from $1.92 billion in 2013 to $6.50 billion in 2018, a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 27.7% from 2013 to 2018. In the current scenario, government and utilities are expected to be the largest adaptor for face recognition technology. In terms of regions, North America is poised to be the biggest market for face recognition. However, over the next five years, APAC will experience increased market traction, to become the biggest facial recognition market globally.