Detection of Digital Facial Retouching utilizing Face Beauty Information

Facial retouching to beautify images is widely spread in social media, advertisements, and it is even applied in professional photo studios to let individuals appear younger, remove wrinkles and skin impurities. Generally speaking, this is done to enhance beauty. This is not a problem itself, but when retouched images are used as biometric samples and enrolled in a biometric system, it is one. Since previous work has proven facial retouching to be a challenge for face recognition systems,the detection of facial retouching becomes increasingly necessary. This work proposes to study and analyze changes in beauty assessment algorithms of retouched images, assesses different feature extraction methods based on artificial intelligence in order to improve retouching detection, and evaluates whether face beauty can be exploited to enhance the detection rate. In a scenario where the attacking retouching algorithm is unknown, this work achieved 1.1% D-EER on single image detection.

StableMorph: High-Quality Face Morph Generation with Stable Diffusion

Face morphing attacks threaten the integrity of biometric identity systems by enabling multiple individuals to share a single identity. To develop and evaluate effective morphing attack detection (MAD) systems, we need access to high-quality, realistic morphed images that reflect the challenges posed in real-world scenarios. However, existing morph generation methods often produce images that are blurry, riddled with artifacts, or poorly constructed making them easy to detect and not representative of the most dangerous attacks. In this work, we introduce StableMorph, a novel approach that generates highly realistic, artifact-free morphed face images using modern diffusion-based image synthesis. Unlike prior methods, StableMorph produces full-head images with sharp details, avoids common visual flaws, and offers unmatched control over visual attributes. Through extensive evaluation, we show that StableMorph images not only rival or exceed the quality of genuine face images but also maintain a strong ability to fool face recognition systems posing a greater challenge to existing MAD solutions and setting a new standard for morph quality in research and operational testing. StableMorph improves the evaluation of biometric security by creating more realistic and effective attacks and supports the development of more robust detection systems.

Identity Card Presentation Attack Detection: A Systematic Review

Remote identity verification is essential for modern digital security; however, it remains highly vulnerable to sophisticated Presentation Attacks (PAs) that utilise forged or manipulated identity documents. Although Deep Learning (DL) has driven advances in Presentation Attack Detection (PAD), the field is fundamentally limited by a lack of data and the poor generalisation of models across various document types and new attack methods. This article presents a systematic literature review (SLR) conducted in accordance with the PRISMA methodology, aiming to analyse and synthesise the current state of AI-based PAD for identity documents from 2020 to 2025 comprehensively. Our analysis reveals a significant methodological evolution: a transition from standard Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) to specialised forensic micro-artefact analysis, and more recently, the adoption of large-scale Foundation Models (FMs), marking a substantial shift in the field. We identify a central paradox that hinders progress: a critical "Reality Gap" exists between models validated on extensive, private datasets and those assessed using limited public datasets, which typically consist of mock-ups or synthetic data. This gap limits the reproducibility of research results. Additionally, we highlight a "Synthetic Utility Gap," where synthetic data generation the primary academic response to data scarcity often fails to predict forensic utility. This can lead to model overfitting to generation artefacts instead of the actual attack. This review consolidates our findings, identifies critical research gaps, and provides a definitive reference framework that outlines a prescriptive roadmap for future research aimed at developing secure, robust, and globally generalizable PAD systems.

Second Competition on Presentation Attack Detection on ID Card

This work summarises and reports the results of the second Presentation Attack Detection competition on ID cards. This new version includes new elements compared to the previous one. (1) An automatic evaluation platform was enabled for automatic benchmarking; (2) Two tracks were proposed in order to evaluate algorithms and datasets, respectively; and (3) A new ID card dataset was shared with Track 1 teams to serve as the baseline dataset for the training and optimisation. The Hochschule Darmstadt, Fraunhofer-IGD, and Facephi company jointly organised this challenge. 20 teams were registered, and 74 submitted models were evaluated. For Track 1, the "Dragons" team reached first place with an Average Ranking and Equal Error rate (EER) of AV-Rank of 40.48% and 11.44% EER, respectively. For the more challenging approach in Track 2, the "Incode" team reached the best results with an AV-Rank of 14.76% and 6.36% EER, improving on the results of the first edition of 74.30% and 21.87% EER, respectively. These results suggest that PAD on ID cards is improving, but it is still a challenging problem related to the number of images, especially of bona fide images.

Can Foundation Models Predict Fitness for Duty?

Biometric capture devices have been utilised to estimate a person's alertness through near-infrared iris images, expanding their use beyond just biometric recognition. However, capturing a substantial number of corresponding images related to alcohol consumption, drug use, and sleep deprivation to create a dataset for training an AI model presents a significant challenge. Typically, a large quantity of images is required to effectively implement a deep learning approach. Currently, training downstream models with a huge number of images based on foundational models provides a real opportunity to enhance this area, thanks to the generalisation capabilities of self-supervised models. This work examines the application of deep learning and foundational models in predicting fitness for duty, which is defined as the subject condition related to determining the alertness for work.

Can Foundation Models Generalise the Presentation Attack Detection Capabilities on ID Cards?

Nowadays, one of the main challenges in presentation attack detection (PAD) on ID cards is obtaining generalisation capabilities for a diversity of countries that are issuing ID cards. Most PAD systems are trained on one, two, or three ID documents because of privacy protection concerns. As a result, they do not obtain competitive results for commercial purposes when tested in an unknown new ID card country. In this scenario, Foundation Models (FM) trained on huge datasets can help to improve generalisation capabilities. This work intends to improve and benchmark the capabilities of FM and how to use them to adapt the generalisation on PAD of ID Documents. Different test protocols were used, considering zero-shot and fine-tuning and two different ID card datasets. One private dataset based on Chilean IDs and one open-set based on three ID countries: Finland, Spain, and Slovakia. Our findings indicate that bona fide images are the key to generalisation.

SynID: Passport Synthetic Dataset for Presentation Attack Detection

The demand for Presentation Attack Detection (PAD) to identify fraudulent ID documents in remote verification systems has significantly risen in recent years. This increase is driven by several factors, including the rise of remote work, online purchasing, migration, and advancements in synthetic images. Additionally, we have noticed a surge in the number of attacks aimed at the enrolment process. Training a PAD to detect fake ID documents is very challenging because of the limited number of ID documents available due to privacy concerns. This work proposes a new passport dataset generated from a hybrid method that combines synthetic data and open-access information using the ICAO requirement to obtain realistic training and testing images.

ChatGPT Encounters Morphing Attack Detection: Zero-Shot MAD with Multi-Modal Large Language Models and General Vision Models

Face Recognition Systems (FRS) are increasingly vulnerable to face-morphing attacks, prompting the development of Morphing Attack Detection (MAD) algorithms. However, a key challenge in MAD lies in its limited generalizability to unseen data and its lack of explainability-critical for practical application environments such as enrolment stations and automated border control systems. Recognizing that most existing MAD algorithms rely on supervised learning paradigms, this work explores a novel approach to MAD using zero-shot learning leveraged on Large Language Models (LLMs). We propose two types of zero-shot MAD algorithms: one leveraging general vision models and the other utilizing multimodal LLMs. For general vision models, we address the MAD task by computing the mean support embedding of an independent support set without using morphed images. For the LLM-based approach, we employ the state-of-the-art GPT-4 Turbo API with carefully crafted prompts. To evaluate the feasibility of zero-shot MAD and the effectiveness of the proposed methods, we constructed a print-scan morph dataset featuring various unseen morphing algorithms, simulating challenging real-world application scenarios. Experimental results demonstrated notable detection accuracy, validating the applicability of zero-shot learning for MAD tasks. Additionally, our investigation into LLM-based MAD revealed that multimodal LLMs, such as ChatGPT, exhibit remarkable generalizability to untrained MAD tasks. Furthermore, they possess a unique ability to provide explanations and guidance, which can enhance transparency and usability for end-users in practical applications.

Demographic Variability in Face Image Quality Measures

Face image quality assessment (FIQA) algorithms are being integrated into online identity management applications. These applications allow users to upload a face image as part of their document issuance process, where the image is then run through a quality assessment process to make sure it meets the quality and compliance requirements. Concerns about demographic bias have been raised about biometric systems, given the societal implications this may cause. It is therefore important that demographic variability in FIQA algorithms is assessed such that mitigation measures can be created. In this work, we study the demographic variability of all face image quality measures included in the ISO/IEC 29794-5 international standard across three demographic variables: age, gender, and skin tone. The results are rather promising and show no clear bias toward any specific demographic group for most measures. Only two quality measures are found to have considerable variations in their outcomes for different groups on the skin tone variable.

Eye Sclera for Fair Face Image Quality Assessment

Fair operational systems are crucial in gaining and maintaining society's trust in face recognition systems (FRS). FRS start with capturing an image and assessing its quality before using it further for enrollment or verification. Fair Face Image Quality Assessment (FIQA) schemes therefore become equally important in the context of fair FRS. This work examines the sclera as a quality assessment region for obtaining a fair FIQA. The sclera region is agnostic to demographic variations and skin colour for assessing the quality of a face image. We analyze three skin tone related ISO/IEC face image quality assessment measures and assess the sclera region as an alternative area for assessing FIQ. Our analysis of the face dataset of individuals from different demographic groups representing different skin tones indicates sclera as an alternative to measure dynamic range, over- and under-exposure of face using sclera region alone. The sclera region being agnostic to skin tone, i.e., demographic factors, provides equal utility as a fair FIQA as shown by our Error-vs-Discard Characteristic (EDC) curve analysis.