Facial recognition technology being studied as a way to identify vaccinated dogs

BOSTON - Humans use facial recognition technology all the time, like for unlocking your phone, but now it's being studied as a way to determine whether a dog has been vaccinated or not.

Rabies kills about 60,000 people around the world each year. Widespread vaccination of domestic dogs is effective at preventing infection but in many countries, it is hard to determine which dogs have been vaccinated and which haven't. Vaccination cards can be lost, dog tags can be misplaced, and microchipping is too expensive for most dog owners.

A facial recognition app for animals has been used here in North America to correctly identify lost pets. Now researchers used the same smartphone technology in a village in Tanzania and were able to identify vaccinated dogs with a high degree of accuracy. 

The idea is that when a dog receives its rabies vaccine, it would be registered in the facial recognition app with a photo. If the vaccination status of that dog is ever in question, they can then use the app to correctly identify the dog and confirm that it had already been vaccinated.

In:
• Health
• Dogs
• Rabies

Mallika Marshall, MD

Mallika Marshall, MD is an Emmy-award-winning journalist and physician who has served as the HealthWatch Reporter for CBS Boston/WBZ-TV for over 20 years. A practicing physician Board Certified in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, Dr. Marshall serves on staff at Harvard Medical School and practices at Massachusetts General Hospital at the MGH Chelsea Urgent Care and the MGH Revere Health Center, where she is currently working on the frontlines caring for patients with COVID-19. She is also a host and contributing editor for Harvard Health Publications (HHP), the publishing division of Harvard Medical School.

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