THE agents charged with protecting the US from another September 11 terrorist attack are turning to technology produced in the region to guard its borders.

The National Security Agency (NSA), made famous in the hit US TV show 24, is testing FaceEnforce, a 3D facial recognition system.

The system, created by York-based company Cybula, can take an image from a security camera and, in a matter of seconds, compare it to millions of faces on a database.

The best the market can offer at present is a two-dimensional image comparison system.

The software and hardware can be scaled up without sacrificing processing speed, which means every face in an airport crowd could quickly be matched to a list of suspected terrorists or criminals.

The NSA has taken the system on trial as part of its $18bn US-Visit homeland security programme, set up in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

Professor Jim Austin, Cybula founder, said: "We have made it through the first two rounds of tests and should find out later this year if we have been successful."

He began Cybula at York University in 2000. Based on York Science Park, it employs six staff and last year had a turnover of £500,000.

It was set up to capitalise on the potential of a 15-year project by scientists at the university.

Researchers at the department of computer science, who perfected high-performance pattern-matching in computers, by mimicking electronic brain impulses.

FaceEnforce came about after AC Technology, based in Washington, US, asked Cybula to look into facial recognition systems.

The system processes a photograph and takes exact 3D measurements of the face and then measures the data against faces held in its files.

The product is also aimed at organisations that need to control access to secure areas.

It is faster than other biometric methods used by high-security organisations, such as iris or fingerprint recognition.