Is it permissible for an electronic engineering student to work on developing security devices that rely on analyzing and modifying images of human faces, knowing that images are prohibited and may include faces of women?

The ruling on photographs is a matter of scholarly disagreement. However, it is definitively forbidden to look at them if they display anything that is unlawful to view. If a situation involves both benefits and harms, and the preponderant view is acted upon, then if the analyses you perform bring about benefits that outweigh the harms they contain—such as being a means to apprehend criminals or reduce crimes—then there is no harm in practicing that work.