Exploring Presentation Attack Vulnerability and Usability of Face Recognition Systems

Heinz Hofbauer, Andreas Uhl, Luca Debiasi, Susanne Kränkl

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Commercial face recognition software intended for the use of access control is evaluated. Most of the systems are to be used with hand-held devices (smartphones). The systems under test also contain three stationary systems designed to unlock doors or other secure entrance systems. While specifics of the systems cannot be gone in-depth under test (due to NDAs), the results of the evaluation of liveness detection (or presentation attack detection) with different complexity levels and template comparison performance are presented. The robustness against presentation attack is compares with the systems usability, and highlight where current commercial of the shelf systems (COTS) stand in that regard. The results focusing on the tradeoff between acceptance, linked with usability, and security are examined, which usually negatively impacts usability. A first extension of the attacks to systems using the NIR spectrum for imaging is also presented. This is mostly limited to stationary systems as they can include dedicated hardware with NIR capabilities. This is their main differentiation to most COTS systems running on smartphones, which do not rely on dedicated hardware. Though exceptions to this already exist for example in Apple devices. It is shown that most of the systems are not secure and not user friendly, having huge problems with difficult lighting conditions while only providing the most basic liveness or presentation attack detection capabilities.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)219-232
Number of pages14
JournalIET Biometrics
Volume10
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 25 Jan 2021

Bibliographical note

© 2021 The Authors. IET Biometrics published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The Institution of Engineering and Technology.

Keywords

  • Access control
  • Commercial off-the-shelf
  • Infrared devices
  • Mobile security
  • Smartphones
  • Usability engineering
  • Commercial of the shelves
  • Complexity levels
  • Dedicated hardware
  • Face recognition systems
  • Lighting conditions
  • Liveness detection
  • Stationary systems
  • Systems under tests
  • Face recognition

Fields of Science and Technology Classification 2012

  • 102 Computer Sciences

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