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Facial recognition has been shown to have different accuracy for different demographic groups. When setting a threshold to achieve a specific False Match Rate (FMR) on a mixed demographic impostor distribution, some demographic groups can experience a significantly worse FMR. To mitigate this, some authors have proposed to use demographic-specific thresholds. However, this can be impractical in an operational scenario, as it would either require users to report their demographic group or the system to predict the demographic group of each user. Both of these options can be deemed controversial since the demographic group is a sensitive attribute. Further, this approach requires listing the possible demographic groups, which can become controversial in itself. We show that a similar mitigation effect can be achieved using non-sensitive predicted soft-biometric attributes. These attributes are based on the appearance of the users (such as hairstyle, accessories, and facial geometry) rather than how the users self-identify. Our experiments use a set of 38 binary non-sensitive attributes from the MAAD-Face dataset. We report results on the Balanced Faces in the Wild dataset, which has a balanced number of identities by race and gender. We compare clustering-based and decision-tree-based strategies for selecting thresholds. We show that the proposed strategies can reduce differential outcomes in intersectional groups twice as effectively as using gender-specific thresholds and, in some cases, are also better than using race-specific thresholds.

Post-mortem biometrics entails utilizing the biometric data of a deceased individual for determining or verifying human identity. Due to fundamental biological changes that occur in a person's biometric traits after death, post-mortem data can be significantly different from ante-mortem data, introducing new challenges for biometric sensors, feature extractors and matchers. This paper surveys research to date on the problem of using iris images acquired after death for automated human recognition. A comprehensive review of existing literature is complemented by a summary of the most recent results and observations offered in these publications. This survey is unique in several elements. Firstly, it is the first publication to consider iris recognition where gallery images are acquired before death (peri-mortem images) and the probe images are acquired after death from the same subjects. Secondly, results are presented from the largest database of peri-mortem and post-mortem iris images, collected from 213 subjects by two independent institutions located in the U.S. and Poland. Thirdly, post-mortem recognition viability is assessed using more than 20 iris recognition algorithms, ranging from the classic (e.g., Gabor filtering-based) to the modern (e.g., deep learning-based). Finally, we provide a medically informed commentary on post-mortem iris, analyze the reasons for recognition failures, and identify key directions for future research.

With the availability of inexpensive biometric sensors, computing power, and memory, it is becoming increasingly clear that biometrics technology will have broader usage, and therefore broader scope of future research in addressing newer challenges and pushing the boundaries. If we perceive of biometrics as a fundamental technology with broad scientific and economic impact, then designing efficient algorithms and systems will require a multidisciplinary effort in signal/image processing, pattern recognition, machine learning, sensor design, embedded systems, and information fusion.