The Brandywine Valley SPCA in West Chester is the first animal shelter in the Philadelphia region to partner with facial recognition app Finding Rover to identify lost pets brought into its care and reunite them with their owners, writes John McDevitt for KYW Newsradio.

“It’s pretty sophisticated technology, as far as looking for the nuances in facial recognition,” said BVSPCA spokesperson Linda Torelli. “It’s similar technology that might be used in security systems and things like that to identify individual attributes.”

The app encourages owners to upload photos of their cats and dogs, while they are safely at home, to Finding Rover’s national database. Then, if the pet goes missing and arrives at a shelter such as the BVSPCA, its picture is taken and uploaded to the app. Finding Rover then searches the database and matches up the pictures to identify the pet. The service is free.

BVSPCA also uses microchips and social media to help reunite pets with their owners.

“We have a 37 percent reunite rate,” said Torelli.

That is significantly higher than the national average of 17.4 percent.

Read more about the Brandywine Valley SPCA at KYW Newsradio here.

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