It's estimated that more than 10 million pets go missing every year. Now, real-time face recognition can help bring some of these animals home, and the Miami-Dade Animal Services is on board.
Finding Rover, a free mobile app, uses facial recognition technology to help families find their missing pets on the spot by simply taking a photo on a mobile device.
"You take a picture of your dog. If you ever lose your dog, you report it lost," Finding Rover founder John Polimeno said. "Anybody that's found your dog and has the app takes a picture of it, it can instantly match it with our facial recognition."
Beginning Wednesday, Miami-Dade Animal Services' entire database of missing dogs will be automatically uploaded and integrated into the Finding Rover mobile app.
Users who download the app and register their pets can use a photo of their missing dog and instantly find out if they've been picked up by the shelter.
“We hope everyone who has a dog in our community can take advantage of this opportunity to ensure the safe return of their dog that may go missing through the use of this free app,” said Alex Muñoz, Director of Animal Services. “We receive approximately 500 pets a week at the shelter and the Finding Rover app is an important technological tool that can help us reunite lost pets with their owners.”
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Miami-Dade is the first shelter in Florida to partner with Finding Rover. The service has already launched in San Antonio and Houston.
Some key benefits of Finding Rover include:
- Easy to register: Registration can be done easily through Facebook and email – all you need is a picture of your dog and a zip code
- Easy to use: Anyone with a mobile phone can take a photo of a lost dog, which will be instantly posted on Finding Rover.
- Technologically advanced: Finding Rover spent two years with The University of Utah research and development (R&D) department creating its proprietary facial recognition technology. Finding Rover has the only technology that instantly recognizes a dog on the spot.
- Social: Finding Rover unites dog owners based on common interests and provides a forum for users to read up on the latest dog news, share content and interact.
- Free! Finding Rover is free to download.
Finding Rover works on iPhone, Android, or the Web.
