The FACING-2 project aims to study and develop methods that allow exploring facial biometrics of human beings in a safe, stable way and that complies with national and international privacy and security regulations. These methods will then be used in the construction of complete biometric systems (end-to-end), respecting the same security and privacy requirements. The project will explore the following main axes: compliance of portraits of ID documents with ICAO/EU requirements, facial recognition, liveness detection, morphing design, biometric template protection, face image quality assessment (FIQA), and user interface that allow the construction of apps with a modern and friendly usability. Regarding the techniques and methodologies used, the FACING-2 project will have a strong component of artificial intelligence and machine learning in computer vision, using the latest and sophisticated algorithms according to scientific literature.

It should also be noted that the FACING-2 project will have a strong engineering component, since it is intended to industrialize the technology assuming realistic scenarios of product development. Specifically, some use cases are foreseen in the project technology. On the one hand, an intended use case is the self-registration of citizens at a distance in government systems and portals, allowing citizens, for example, to request the renewal of their civil identification or distance travel documents, without the need to travel to the official premises of the respective public authorities, reuse of your biometric data stored in a centralized system. On the other hand, a second use case is linked to the possibility of a person authenticating to a physical system, either using an ID or travel document, or using only his face as a biometric guarantee of physical integrity.

Research Coordinator and Project Manager: João Marcos