Photographic, video, optical measuring instruments and alarm apparatus, namely access control hardware and software, door opening apparatus, surveillance hardware and software for ware houses, shops, store houses, and airports, monitoring equipment for guards, theft prevention systems based on image processing; hardware and software for biometric identification, for facial recognition, for face verification, for the extraction of facial images from video sources and for peripherals to television sets; hardware and software for recording, transmission or reproduction of images, namely computer peripherals for imaging, network devices for imaging, video surveillance equipment, equipment for telecommunication associated with video and still images, in particular video conferencing, video telephony, and mobile multimedia appliances; image processing hardware and software for use in automatic teller machines, cash and goods dispensers, portrait photo machines, ticketing machines, vending machines, transaction kiosks, information kiosks, point of sale terminals, and entertainment equipment; data processing equipment and computers, namely computers with an image capture device attached or integrated, devices for personnel time recording, service terminals and mobile appliances with optical authorization control, computer software for identification and pattern recognition, computer vision software associated with image database systems, computer software for identifying humans, computer software for automatically taking a picture of a person's face.