ID R&D Publishes White Paper on Bias in Facial Presentation Attack Detection

Biometrics technology provider, ID R&D, has published a paper titled ‘Mitigating Demographic Bias in Facial Presentation Attack Detection ¹’ containing results and lessons learned from the world’s first test of a facial liveness algorithm for demographic bias by an independent, accredited biometrics laboratory.

The use of biometrics has become common in personal, commercial, and government identity management applications. According to ID R&D, these systems use artificial intelligence (AI), primarily in the form of machine learning, to recognise individuals based on their unique physical or behavioural characteristics.

However, there has been a concern in the public, media, and academia over the existence of systemic bias in systems that use face biometrics for automated decision making.

With an increasing utilisation of biometrics for identity verification and authentication, the need for consistent accuracy across races, ages, and genders is paramount. Where there is bias, there is the potential for individuals to experience different biometric false match and false non-match error rates based on their appearance and demographics.