Video Presentation Attack Detection in Visible Spectrum Iris Recognition Using Magnified Phase Information

This dissertation focuses on iris biometrics. Although the iris is the most accurate biometric, its adoption has been relatively slow. Conventional iris recognition systems utilize still eye images captured in ideal environments and require highly constrained subject presentation. A drop in recognition performance is observed when these constraints are removed as the quality of the data acquired is affected by heterogeneous factors. For iris recognition to be widely adopted, it can therefore be argued that the image capture must be facilitated and better performance should be achieved in less constrained imaging conditions. The research work presented in this dissertation demonstrates how performance in iris recognition systems is improved by adopting a video-based approach. The following components have been investigated in this study and presented in relevant publications: (1) Robust eye extraction method of eye images in face videos captured at a distance and on the move (2) Selection of optimal frames in iris videos (3) Iris segmentation in less constrained environments (4) An automated method for predicting inaccurate iris segmentation (5) Optimization of iris codes for improved recognition. The main results and novelties of this work include: Firstly, the development of a fast and accurate method for detecting eye images in face videos. Secondly, this work demonstrates that selection of optimal frames in NIR iris videos lead to better recognition performance. Thirdly, an accurate and robust iris segmentation model for eye images captured in uncontrolled conditions is proposed. Fourthly, this research presents a fully automated segmentation evaluation model for detection of in- correctly segmented iris images. Finally, a new method for optimization of several iris codes into a single highly optimized iris code is introduced. Our results and experiments suggest that incorporation of the above methods in traditional iris recognition systems will be useful for the adoption of this technology by a larger community.

The texture of the iris is commonly represented as an iris code in iris recognition systems. While several approaches have been presented for generating iris codes, relatively few comparison techniques have been proposed. In this paper, we take advantage of the availability of several frames from an iris video to create a single optimized iris code. This is achieved by performing both row-wise and column-wise optimization of iris codes. Inconsistent bits are accurately detected and masked in the final iris code. Our experiments demonstrate that by exploiting variations within the comparison scores of different rows and columns of N frames, we are able to derive the number of consistent bits in the final iris code thereby resulting in significant improvement in recognition performance. We compare our algorithm with well-known methods, namely, Fragile bit masking, Signal fusion and, two Score Fusion techniques. Experimental results on a dataset of 986 iris videos show that the proposed method is encouraging and comparable to the best algorithms in the current literature. To our knowledge, this is the first work that makes use of the best rows and columns from different frames in an iris video to improve performance.

Iris recognition technology has attracted an increasing interest in the last decades in which we have witnessed a migration from research laboratories to real-world applications. The deployment of this technology raises questions about the main vulnerabilities and security threats related to these systems. Among these threats, presentation attacks stand out as some of the most relevant and studied. Presentation attacks can be defined as the presentation of human characteristics or artifacts directly to the capture device of a biometric system trying to interfere with its normal operation. In the case of the iris, these attacks include the use of real irises as well as artifacts with different levels of sophistication such as photographs or videos. This chapter introduces iris Presentation Attack Detection (PAD) methods that have been developed to reduce the risk posed by presentation attacks. First, we summarize the most popular types of attacks including the main challenges to address. Second, we present a taxonomy of PAD methods as a brief introduction to this very active research area. Finally, we discuss the integration of these methods into iris recognition systems according to the most important scenarios of practical application.

The randomness and richness present in the iris texture make the 2D Gabor filter bank analysis a suitable technique to be used for iris recognition systems. To accurately characterize complex texture structures using 2D Gabor filters it is necessary to use multiple sets of parameters of this type of filters. This paper proposes a technique of optimizing multiple sets of 2D Gabor filter parameters to gradually enhance the accuracy of an iris recognition system. The proposed methodology is suitable to be applied on both near infrared and visible spectrum iris images. To illustrate the efficiency of the filter bank design technique, UBIRISv1 database was used for benchmarking.

Human iris is considered a reliable and accurate modality for biometric recognition due to its unique texture information. However, similar to other biometric modalities, iris recognition systems are also vulnerable to presentation attacks (commonly called spoofing) that attempt to conceal or impersonate identity. Examples of typical iris spoofing attacks are printed iris images, textured contact lenses, and synthetic creation of iris images. It is critical to note that majority of the algorithms proposed in the literature are trained to handle a specific type of spoofing attack. These algorithms usually perform very well on that particular attack. However, in real-world applications, an attacker may perform different spoofing attacks. In such a case, the problem becomes more challenging due to inherent variations in different attacks. In this paper, we focus on a medley of iris spoofing attacks and present a unified framework for detecting such attacks. We propose a novel structural and textural feature based iris spoofing detection framework (DESIST). Multi-order dense Zernike moments are calculated across the iris image which encode variations in structure of the iris image. Local Binary Pattern with Variance (LBPV) is utilized for representing textural changes in a spoofed iris image. The highest classification accuracy of 82.20% is observed by the proposed framework for detecting normal and spoofed iris images on a combined iris spoofing database.

The ability to identify individuals based on their iris is known as iris recognition. Over the past decade iris recognition has garnered much attention because of its strong performance in comparison with other mainstream biometrics such as fingerprint and face recognition. Performance of iris recognition systems is driven by application scenario requirements. Standoff distance, subject cooperation, underlying optics, and illumination are a few examples of these requirements which dictate the nature of images an iris recognition system has to process. Traditional iris recognition systems, dubbed "stop and stare", operate under highly constrained conditions. This ensures that the captured image is of sufficient quality so that the success of subsequent processing stages, segmentation, encoding, and matching are not compromised. When acquisition constraints are relaxed, such as for surveillance or iris on the move, the fidelity of subsequent processing steps lessens.;In this dissertation we propose a multi-faceted framework for mitigating the difficulties associated with non-ideal iris. We develop and investigate a comprehensive iris image quality metric that is predictive of iris matching performance. The metric is composed of photometric measures such as defocus, motion blur, and illumination, but also contains domain specific measures such as occlusion, and gaze angle. These measures are then combined through a fusion rule based on Dempster-Shafer theory. Related to iris segmentation, which is arguably one of the most important tasks in iris recognition, we develop metrics which are used to evaluate the precision of the pupil and iris boundaries. Furthermore, we illustrate three methods which take advantage of the proposed segmentation metrics for rectifying incorrect segmentation boundaries. Finally, we look at the issue of iris image interoperability and demonstrate that techniques from the field of hardware fingerprinting can be utilized to improve iris matching performance when images captured from distinct sensors are involved.

Iris is an evenly highlighted radial membrane with complex patterns that are perceptible upon near inspection, which exists behind the cornea of the eye with a changeable circular opening called the pupil. Iris Recognition System is a technique of identifying people using those complex distinctive features in patterns. Generally, Iris recognition system is used in security allied applications such as, authenticating PCs, network and mobile devices, physical and logical premises access control, national border control, secure banking and financial transactions, national identity like AADHAAR in India etc. This paper reviews the state-of-art design and implementation of various iris recognition systems. The contributions of the paper include: 1) conferring the importance, applications and deployment of iris recognition system related to human identification; 2) providing an analysis on iris recognition methods in effect; 3, discussing the present research defies; 4) providing commendations for the future research on iris recognition system.

Human iris is considered a reliable and accurate modality for biometric recognition due to its unique texture information. Reliability and accuracy of iris biometric modality have prompted its large-scale deployment for critical applications such as border control and national identification projects. The extensive growth of iris recognition systems has raised apprehensions about the susceptibility of these systems to various presentation attacks. In this thesis, a novel iris presentation attack using deep learning based synthetically generated iris images is presented. Utilizing the generative capability of deep convolutional generative adversarial networks and iris quality metrics, a new framework, named as iDCGAN is proposed for creating realistic appearing synthetic iris images. In-depth analysis is performed using quality score distributions of real and synthetically generated iris images to understand the effectiveness of the proposed approach. We also demonstrate that synthetically generated iris images can be used to attack existing iris recognition systems. As synthetically generated iris images can be effectively deployed in iris presentation attacks, it is important to develop accurate iris presentation attack detection algorithms which can distinguish such synthetic iris images from real iris images. For this purpose, a novel structural and textural feature-based iris presentation attack detection framework (DESIST) is proposed. The key emphasis of DESIST is on developing a unified framework for detecting a medley of iris presentation attacks, including synthetic iris. Experimental evaluations showcase the efficacy of the proposed DESIST framework in detecting synthetic iris presentation attacks.

— Iris recognition system provides an approach for individual identification and is regarded as the sophisticated biometric identification system. Therefore, the exclusive features of iris patterns should be extracted and processed. In this paper, a new feature extraction method according to ridgelet transform for identifying the iris images is provided. At first, after segmentation and normalization the collarette area of iris images has been extracted. Then we improve the quality of image by using median filter, histogram equalization, and the two-dimensional (2-D) Wiener filter as well. Finally, ridgelet transform is employed for extracting features and then, the binary bit stream vector is generated. The Hamming distance (HD) between the input bit stream vector and stored vectors is calculated for iris identification. The experimental results show efficiency of the proposed method. Keywords- Iris identification, ridgelet transform. I. I NTRODUCTION Biometrics is the technology of identification a person from a physical characteristic and it is based on behavioral characteristics of human structures. Among existing different structural features, it was shown that exclusive features like iris pattern have very suitable features [1]. Some properties of the human iris that enhance its suitability for automatic identification include: 1) its inherent isolation and protection from the external environment, being an internal organ of the eye, behind the cornea and the aqueous humor 2) the impossibility of surgically modifying it without high risk of damaging the user’s vision 3) its physiological response to light, which provides the detection of a dead or plastic iris and 4) never are there two irises alike, even for identical twin. Many researchers developed iris recognition systems. Daugman [2] proposed an algorithm which was based on iris codes. Integral differential operators are used to detect the centre and diameter of the iris. The image is converted from cartesian to polar transform and rectangular representation of the region of interest is generated. Feature extraction algorithm uses the complex valued 2-D Gabor wavelets to generate the iris codes which are then matched using HDs. Boles and Boashash [3] used zero crossing point of 1-D wavelet at different levels on same center circle of the iris and pupil centralism. Wildes [4] used Laplace pyramid with four various resolution levels to range and normalize correlation for comparison between input image and database images. Ma et al. [5] used 4 dimensional Haar wavelet analysis in four steps decomposition. Krichen et al. [6] used wavelet packets to produce an iris code at each

The vulnerability of the face recognition system to spoofing attacks has piqued the biometric community's interest, motivating them to develop anti-spoofing techniques to secure it. Photo, video, or mask attacks can compromise face biometric systems (types of presentation attacks). Spoofing attacks are detected using liveness detection techniques, which determine whether the facial image presented at a biometric system is a live face or a fake version of it. We discuss the classification of face anti-spoofing techniques in this paper. Anti-spoofing techniques are divided into two categories: hardware and software methods. Hardware-based techniques are summarized briefly. A comprehensive study on software-based countermeasures for presentation attacks is discussed, which are further divided into static and dynamic methods. We cited a few publicly available presentation attack datasets and calculated a few metrics to demonstrate the value of anti-spoofing techniques.

Iris recognition systems are among the most accurate of all biometric technologies with immense potential for use in worldwide security applications. This study examined the effect of eye pathology on iris recognition and in particular whether eye disease could cause iris recognition systems to fail. The experiment involved a prospective cohort of 54 patients with anterior segment eye disease who were seen at the acute referral unit of the Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion in Edinburgh. Iris camera images were obtained from patients before treatment was commenced and again at follow-up appointments after treatment had been given. The principal outcome measure was that of mathematical difference in the iris recognition templates obtained from patients' eyes before and after treatment of the eye disease. Results showed that the performance of iris recognition was remarkably resilient to most ophthalmic disease states, including corneal oedema, iridotomies (laser puncture of iris) and conjunctivitis. Problems were, however, encountered in some patients with acute inflammation of the iris (iritis/anterior uveitis). The effects of a subject developing anterior uveitis may cause current recognition systems to fail. Those developing and deploying iris recognition should be aware of the potential problems that this could cause to this key biometric technology.

The performance and robustness of the iris-based recognition systems still suffer from imperfection in the biometric information. This paper makes an attempt to address these imperfections and deals with important problem for real system. We proposed a new method for iris recognition system based on uncertainty theories to treat imperfection iris feature. Several factors cause different types of degradation in iris data such as the poor quality of the acquired pictures, the partial occlusion of the iris region due to light spots, or lenses, eyeglasses, hair or eyelids, and adverse illumination and/or contrast. All of these factors are open problems in the field of iris recognition and affect the performance of iris segmentation, its feature extraction or decision making process, and appear as imperfections in the extracted iris feature. The aim of our experiments is to model the variability and ambiguity in the iris data with the uncertainty theories. This paper illustrates the importance of the use of this theory for modeling or/and treating encountered imperfections. Several comparative experiments are conducted on two subsets of the CASIA-V4 iris image database namely Interval and Synthetic. Compared to a typical iris recognition system relying on the uncertainty theories, experimental results show that our proposed model improves the iris recognition system in terms of Equal Error Rates (EER), Area Under the receiver operating characteristics Curve (AUC) and Accuracy Recognition Rate (ARR) statistics.

Although human iris pattern is widely accepted as a stable biometric feature, recent research has found some evidences on the aging effect of iris system. In order to investigate changes in iris recognition performance due to the elapsed time between probe and gallery iris images, we examine the effect of elapsed time on iris recognition utilizing 7,628 iris images from 46 subjects with an average of ten visits acquired over two years from a legacy database at Clarkson University. Taken into consideration the impact of quality factors such as local contrast, illumination, blur and noise on iris recognition performance, regression models are built with and without quality metrics to evaluate the degradation of iris recognition performance based on time lapse factors. Our experimental results demonstrate the decrease of iris recognition performance along with increased elapsed time based on two iris recognition system (the modified Masek algorithm and a commercial software VeriEye SDK). These results also reveal the significance of quality factors in iris recognition regression indicating the variability in match scores. According to the regression analysis, our study in this paper helps provide the quantified decrease on match scores with increased elapsed time, which indicates the possibility to implement the prediction scheme for iris recognition performance based on learning of impact on time lapse factors.

Personal identification based on biometrics technology is a trend in the future. Traditional approaches, for example, keys, ID cards, username and password, are neither satisfactory nor reliable enough in many security fields, biometrics authorizations based on face, iris, fingerprint have become a hot research filed. In those methods, iris recognition is regarded as a high accuracy verification technology, so that many countries have the same idea of adopting iris recognition to improve the safety of their key departments. The human iris can also be considered a valid biometrics for personal identification [Richard P W, 1996]. Biometrics recognition based on iris patterns is a hotspot as face recognition and fingerprint recognition recently years. The iris is the colored ring on the human eye between the pupil and the white sclera. Lots of physical biometric can be found in the colored ring of tissue that surrounds the pupil, such as corona, crypts, filaments, flecks, pits, radial furrows and striations. The iris features can be encoded by mathematical representation so that the patterns can be compared easily. In real-time iris recognition application system, iris localization is a very important step for iris recognition. The iris regions segmentation accuracy and localization real-time performance will affect the whole recognition system’s correct rate and effectiveness for large-scale database. Because iris region is a small object and has low grey value, it is very difficult to capture high contrast iris image clearly. In order to improve iris image contrast, usually some illuminations such as near infrared light source are used to increase intensity; however these illuminations may result in some faculas in iris image and affect iris segmentation and iris features. Here, we will discuss iris recognition system’s algorithm, all steps of iris recognition system will be introduced in details. Finally, we will show the experimental results based on iris database.

Iris Recognition (IR) across illumination variations is a problem of fundamental importance in computer vision. In this paper, we propose two novel techniques, viz., Triangular DCT based Feature Extraction (T-DCT) and Radon Transform based Pre-processing, to improve the performance of an IR system. T-DCT is used for efficient feature extraction and Radon Transform is used for curve detection in iris images. A Binary Particle Swarm Optimization (BPSO) based feature selection algorithm is used to search the feature space for optimal feature subset. Individual stages of the IR system are examined and an attempt is made to improve each stage. Experimental results obtained by applying the proposed algorithm on three benchmark iris databases, namely Phoenix, MMU and IITD dataset, show that the proposed system out performs other IR systems. A significant increase in the recognition rate and a substantial reduction in the number of selected features are observed.