A vehicle occupant airbag deployment system (50) that detects, identifies and tracks a person (16) in the passenger seat (18) of a vehicle (12), and provides a signal for no fire, soft fire or hard fire of the airbag (20) depending on the location of the person (16) in a crash event. The airbag deployment system (50) employs infrared emitters (30) that emit an infrared signal towards the passenger seat (18) of the vehicle (12) and an infrared detector (34) that receive reflected radiation from objects in the seat (18). Processing circuitry (52), including face recognition software, is employed to detect human face features to provide the necessary detection and tracking of the person (16). In this manner, the system (50) prevents the airbag (20) from firing if the seat (18) is not occupied by a person (16), prevents the airbag (20) from firing if a person (16) is detected, but is too close to the airbag (20), and provides a soft fire if a person (16) is detected, but is within a soft fire range of the airbag (20).