Tag Archives: iso

CITeR and Combating Facial Recognition Demographic Bias

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) isn’t the only entity that is seeking to combat facial recognition demographic bias. The Center for Identification Technology Research (CITeR) is doing its part.

The Problem

NIST and other entities have documented facial recognition accuracy differences related to skin tone. This is separate from the topic of facial analysis: this relates to facial recognition, or the identification of an individual. (As a note, “Gender Shades” had NOTHING to do with facial recognition.)

It’s fair to summarize that the accuracy of an algorithm depends upon the data used to train the algorithm. For example, if an algorithm is trained entirely on Japanese people, you would expect that it would be very accurate in identifying Japanese, but less accurate in identifying Native Americans or Kenyans.

Many of the most-used facial recognition algorithms are authored by North American/European or Asian companies, and while the good ones seek to employ a broad data set for algorithm training, NIST and other results document clear demographic differences in accuracy.

The Research

The Center for Identification Technology Research (CITeR) is a consortium of universities, government agencies, and private entities. The lead entity in CITeR, Clarkson University, has initiated research on “improving equity in face recognition systems.” Clarkson is using the following methods:

  • Establish a continuous skin color metric that retains accuracy across different image acquisition environments.
  • Develop a statistical approach to measure equity, ensuring FR results fall within a precise margin of error.
  • Employ new FR systems in combination with or instead of existing measures to minimize bias of results.

In this work, Clarkson is cooperating with other entities, such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the FIDO Alliance.

The final goal is to make facial recognition usable for everyone.

Your problem

Is your identity company and its product marketers also working to reduce demographic bias? How are you telling your story? Bredemarket (the biometric product marketing expert) can help with strategic and tactical solutions for your marketing and writing needs.

Bredemarket services, process, and pricing.

If I can help your firm with analysis, content, or even proposals in this area, talk to me.

The Most Shocking News of the Week: A Free ISO Standard!

I have observed that we are living in a time of uncertainty, in which surprises happen every day.

This week has been no exception. As I type this, Donald Trump and Elon Musk are feuding, with accusations of pedophilia leveled against Trump, threats to yank the government contracts of Musk, and who knows what all. Just a typical week in Washington.

But that’s nothing compared to the shocking news I learned Friday morning.

Sit down and don’t bother to bring out your CHF wallet

Biometric Update just published an article that discusses a particular International Organization for Standardization (with the zeds) standard, ISO/IEC-TEC TS 27560:2023, Privacy technologies — Consent record information structure.

  • It’s not shocking that ISO has published a standard. It does this all the time.
  • It’s also not shocking that ISO published a standard on consent. Consent is required by many privacy regulations, and therefore a standard information structure for consent requests is beneficial throughout the European Union, California, Illinois, and elsewhere.

“This document builds upon ISO/IEC 29184 by addressing the concept of giving the PII principal a record for their own recordkeeping, which includes information about the PII processing agreement and interaction. We call this record the “consent receipt”.

“This document specifies a structure that is used by both principals in consent management: namely a specification for data to be held by the organization to allow record-keeping with good integrity (subject to the defined controls), and an artefact (the “consent receipt”) that is given to the individual whose PII is being processed.”

  • No, none of this is the shocking part. I’ll let Chris Burt reveal the surprise, but please sit down before you read this. Emphasis mine.

“The International Standards Organization has published a standard for obtaining and recording consent, as is necessary to legally use people’s biometric data in a number of jurisdictions, and is making it available for free.”

Yes, you read that correctly. FREE. As in ZERO CHF.

ISO doesn’t normally give standards away, but there’s an exception for this one.

As a result, I have “purchased” this ISO standard—the first one that Bredemarket has ever owned.

But I can’t share it with you. Get your own.