Techniques for saving bandwidth in performing facial recognition are provided. An image including a face may be received, over a wireless link, at a first resolution. A facial recognition system may identify a subset of people who may be associated with the face, wherein the facial recognition system cannot definitively associate the face with an individual person in the subset of people, based on the image including the face at the first resolution. A feature of the subset of people that may be used to identify a person within the subset of people may be determined. A request for the portion of the image containing the feature at a second resolution may be sent over the wireless link. The second resolution may be higher than the first.