Impact and Detection of Facial Beautification in Face Recognition: An Overview

International audienceFacial beautification induced by plastic surgery, cosmetics or retouching has the ability to substantially alter the appearance of face images. Such types of beautification can negatively affect the accuracy of face recognition systems. In this work, a conceptual categorisation of beautification is presented, relevant scenarios with respect to face recognition are discussed, and related publications are revisited. Additionally, technical considerations and trade-offs of the surveyed methods are summarized along with open issues and challenges in the field. This survey is targeted to provide a comprehensive point of reference for biometric researchers and practitioners working in the field of face recognition, who aim at tackling challenges caused by facial beautification

The effects of scarring on face recognition

The focus of this research is the effects of scarring on face recognition. Face recognition is a common biometric modality implemented for access control operations such as customs and borders. The recent report from the Special Group on Issues Affecting Facial Recognition and Best Practices for their Mitigation highlighted scarring as one of the emerging challenges. The significance of this problem extends to the ISO/IEC and national agencies are researching to enhance their intelligence capabilities. Data was collected on face images with and without scars, using theatrical special effects to simulate scarring on the face and also from subjects that have developed scarring within their lifetime. A total of 60 subjects participated in this data collection, 30 without scarring of any kind and 30 with preexisting scars. Controlled data on scarring is problematic for face recognition research as scarring has various manifestations among individuals, yet is universal in that all individuals will manifest some degree of scarring. Effect analysis was done with controlled scarring to observe the factor alone, and wild scarring that is encountered during operations for realistic contextualization. Two environments were included in this study, a controlled studio that represented an ideal face capture setting and a mock border control booth simulating an operational use case

Digital Eye Modification A Countermeasure to Automated Face Recognition

This thesis describes and assesses a series of subtle digital eye modification techniques and their impact on automated face detection and recognition. The techniques involve altering the relative positioning of a person\u27s eyes in a photograph using a variety of horizontal and vertical movements local to the eye regions. Testing with Eigenfaces, Fisherfaces, and Circular Local Binary Pattern face recognition algorithms on a database of 40 subjects and over 4000 modified images shows these subtle geometric changes to the eyes can degrade automated face recognition accuracy by 40% or more. Certain modifications even lower the chance a face is detected at all by about 20%. The combined effect of particular eye modifications resulted in subjects being both detected and recognized less than 20% of time. These results indicate that nearly imperceptible modifications made to one or more key facial features may foil face recognition algorithms

On the Impact of Alterations on Face Photo Recognition Accuracy

This work is framed into the context of automatic face recognition in electronic identity documents. In particular we study the impact of digital alteration of the face images used for enrollment on the recognition accuracy. Alterations can be produced both unintentionally (e.g., by the acquisition or printing device) or intentionally (e.g., people modify images to appear more attractive). Our results show that state-of-the-art algorithms are sufficiently robust to deal with some alterations whereas other kinds of degradation can significantly affect the accuracy, thus requiring the adoption of proper detection mechanisms