João C. Monteiro

MobILive 2014 - Mobile Iris Liveness Detection Competition

Biometric systems based on iris are vulnerable to several attacks, particularly direct attacks consisting on the presentation of a fake iris to the sensor. The development of iris liveness detection techniques is crucial for the deployment of iris biometric applications in daily life specially in the mobile biometric field. The 1st Mobile Iris Liveness Detection Competition (MobILive) was organized in the context of IJCB2014 in order to record recent advances in iris liveness detection. The goal for (MobILive) was to contribute to the state of the art of this particular subject. This competition covered the most common and simple spoofing attack in which printed images from an authorized user are presented to the sensor by a non-authorized user in order to obtain access. The benchmark dataset was the MobBIOfake database which is composed by a set of 800 iris images and its corresponding fake copies (obtained from printed images of the original ones captured with the same handheld device and in similar conditions). In this paper we present a brief description of the methods and the results achieved by the six participants in the competition.

Robust Iris Localisation in Challenging Scenarios

The use of images acquired in unconstrained scenarios is giving rise to new challenges in the field of iris recognition. Many works in literature reported excellent results in both iris segmentation and recognition but mostly with images acquired in controlled conditions. The intention to broaden the field of application of iris recognition, such as airport security or personal identification in mobile devices, is therefore hindered by the inherent unconstrained nature under which images are to be acquired. The proposed work focuses on mutual context information from iris centre and iris limbic and pupillary contours to perform robust and accurate iris segmentation in noisy images. The developed algorithm was tested on the MobBIO database with a promising \(96\,\%\) segmentation accuracy for the limbic contour.

Multi-source deep transfer learning for cross-sensor biometrics

Deep transfer learning emerged as a new paradigm in machine learning in which a deep model is trained on a source task and the knowledge acquired is then totally or partially transferred to help in solving a target task. In this paper, we apply the source–target–source methodology, both in its original form and an extended multi-source version, to the problem of cross-sensor biometric recognition. We tested the proposed methodology on the publicly available CSIP image database, achieving state-of-the-art results in a wide variety of cross-sensor scenarios.

Periocular Recognition under Unconstrained Settings with Universal Background Models

The rising challenges in the fields of iris and face recognition are leading to a renewed interest in the area. In recent years the focus of research has turned towards alternative traits to aid in the recognition process under less constrained image acquisition conditions. The present work assesses the potential of the periocular region as an alternative to both iris and face in such scenarios. An automatic modeling of SIFT descriptors, regardless of the number of detected keypoints and using a GMM-based Universal Background Model method, is proposed. This framework is based on the Universal Background Model strategy, first proposed for speaker verification, extrapolated into an image-based application. Such approach allows a tight coupling between individual models and a robust likelihood-ratio decision step. The algorithm was tested on the UBIRIS.v2 and the MobBIO databases and presented state-of-the-art performance for a variety of experimental setups.

A Comparative Analysis of Two Approaches to Periocular Recognition in Mobile Scenarios

In recent years, periocular recognition has become a popular alternative to face and iris recognition in less ideal acquisition scenarios. An interesting example of such scenarios is the usage of mobile devices for recognition purposes. With the growing popularity and easy access to such devices, the development of robust biometric recognition algorithms to work under such conditions finds strong motivation. In the present work we assess the performance of extended versions of two state-of-the-art periocular recognition algorithms on the publicly available CSIP database, a recent dataset composed of images acquired under highly unconstrained and multi-sensor mobile scenarios. The achieved results show each algorithm is better fit to tackle different scenarios and applications of the biometric recognition problem.

A cognitively-motivated framework for partial face recognition in unconstrained scenarios.

Humans perform and rely on face recognition routinely and effortlessly throughout their daily lives. Multiple works in recent years have sought to replicate this process in a robust and automatic way. However, it is known that the performance of face recognition algorithms is severely compromised in non-ideal image acquisition scenarios. In an attempt to deal with conditions, such as occlusion and heterogeneous illumination, we propose a new approach motivated by the global precedent hypothesis of the human brains cognitive mechanisms of perception. An automatic modeling of SIFT keypoint descriptors using a Gaussian mixture model (GMM)-based universal background model method is proposed. A decision is, then, made in an innovative hierarchical sense, with holistic information gaining precedence over a more detailed local analysis. The algorithm was tested on the ORL, ARand Extended Yale B Face databases and presented state-of-the-art performance for a variety of experimental setups.

A Comparative Analysis of Deep and Shallow Features for Multimodal Face Recognition in a Novel RGB-D-IR Dataset

With new trends like 3D and deep learning alternatives for face recognition becoming more popular, it becomes essential to establish a complete benchmark for the evaluation of such algorithms, in a wide variety of data sources and non-ideal scenarios. We propose a new RGB-depth-infrared (RGB-D-IR) dataset, RealFace, acquired with the novel Intel® RealSense™ collection of sensors, and characterized by multiple variations in pose, lighting and disguise. As baseline for future works, we assess the performance of multiple deep and “shallow” feature descriptors. We conclude that our dataset presents some relevant challenges and that deep feature descriptors present both higher robustness in RGB images, as well as an interesting margin for improvement in alternative sources, such as depth and IR.

A Novel Application of Universal Background Models for Periocular Recognition

In recent years the focus of research in the fields of iris and face recognition has turned towards alternative traits to aid in the recognition process under less constrained acquisition scenarios. The present work assesses the potential of the periocular region as an alternative to both iris and face in such conditions. An automatic modeling of SIFT descriptors, using a GMM-based Universal Background Model method, is proposed. This framework is based on the Universal Background Model strategy, first proposed for speaker verification, extrapolated into an image-based application. Such approach allows a tight coupling between individual models and a robust likelihood-ratio decision step. The algorithm was tested on the UBIRIS.v2 and the MobBIO databases and presented state-of-the-art performance for a variety of experimental setups.