Pasco deputies use new technology to ID supsect

John Doe met his match recently at the Pasco County jail.

Zephyrhills police had arrested a man on a series of charges including forgery.

The problem was, however, police had no idea who they were arresting. When the suspect was still uncooperative about his identity at the Land O' Lakes Jail, detention deputies decided to take their new face recognition software for a spin.

So on June 27 Deputy Keith Adams took the man's photo, uploaded it to a computer. Clicked here. Clicked there. Typed in that he was looking for a white man and in a matter of minutes voila. John Doe became 43-year-old Scott Thomas Spate.

The program runs a submitted photograph through a Florida Department of Law Enforcement mugshot database and using biometrics compares the faces.

The first photograph culled from the 17-county database was a match from his Florida Department of Corrections record. Spate did time for grand theft, forgery and fraud. Actually, the next two photographers were his mug, too. The software uses algorithms to measure facial characteristics like the distance eyes are set apart, Adams explained.

"'Most of the facial recognition stems from the eyes," Adams said.

Pasco and Pinellas counties' sheriff's offices share the technology by agreement after Pinellas received the software from a Department of Defense grant, said Lt. Barbara Taylor.

The hope is for even detectives to use the technology to help identify suspects, she said.

"Biometrics seems to be the wave of the future," Tayor said Monday after a demonstration of the technology at the jail. "...I think it's going to be used just as much as DNA is utilized."

Even Spate seemed to be surprised by the technology, Adams said.

"He just said, "I have never seen anything like that,'" Adams recalled.

Pasco jail deputies just started using the face recognition software in June. Spate was their first hit.