Gadgetory

footage from the Boston Marathon bombing is being scrutinized for any clues now software companies have ways to identify specific individuals and pick them out of the crowd that's what we're looking for is the different ways that your mouth has shaped the different ways that your nose is shaped a different way you know that the ridge is shaped and how your eyes are shaped so all of those kind of compute into metadata and then that's how we run that search against your face the engineers at 3v are in San Francisco say their facial surveillance technology works like a Google search but four faces show me all men show me all women show me all people over 30 so I'm a repeat everybody under 20 or we show me people who look like this specific person those are all things we can search on this technology can also be used to identify objects in a specific area like a child's backpack or car if there was a report that a red vehicle fled east on the street we could run around a little against that video and show you every single time a red vehicle went east while facial recognition technology can cut an investigation from days or weeks to minutes or seconds it also brings up questions and concerns over privacy and possible overuse of the technology the surveillance technology is very good uses I mean it can solve crimes it can deter crimes but it also can all across sort of cross the Creeky line and not everyone might like being subjected to this kind of potential cradle-to-grave privacy intrusion while a hat or sunglasses can stump some cameras engineers are already working to counteract these disguises in San Francisco I'm Kara Tsuboi cnet.com for CBS News you