BCC 2004 - Research Needs In Biometrics

Re s e a r c h Ne e d s i n
Bi o me t r i c s
A F e d e r a l Pe r s p e c t i v e

Duane Blackburn
September 21, 2004

duane.blackburn@ic.fbi.gov
dblackbu@ostp.eop.gov

T h e I mp o r t a n c e o f Sc i e n c e

Science for the 21st Century
Executive Office of the President of the United States
July 2004
http://www.ostp.gov/nstc/21stCentury/Final_sm.pdf

Science and technology have never been more
essential to the defense of the nation and the
health of our economy.
President George W. Bush

Qu e s t i o n s t o Po n d e r

• Will all interesting problems in biometrics
be solved in the next fifteen years?
• How does the biometrics community
progress?
• Why do most researchers in biometrics not
consider themselves “biometricians”?
• Is biometrics a science?

W a t Ma k e s So me t h i n g a Sc i e n c e ?
h
• Debatable, some qualifiers could be:
– Intellectual content
– Testable hypotheses; Scientific Method
– Underlying universal/fundamental laws
– Based on peer review
– A body of biometric-based scientific questions (similar to Hilbert’s
math problems)?
• Attracts the best and the brightest
• Only the best and the brightest can solve
• Are specifically related to the field
• Cuts across all subtopics
• May take decades to solve
• Solving the problems bring academic prestige and
fundamental knowledge, vice increased commercialization
options
• On the other hand, was Edison a scientist?

Ku h n ’s Vi e w o n S c i e n c e

• “means research firmly based upon one or more
past scientific achievements, achievements that
some particular scientific community
acknowledges for a time as supplying the
foundation for its further practice.
• These achievements must be
– “Sufficiently unprecedented to attract an enduring
group of adherents away from competing modes of
scientific activity” and
– “Sufficiently open-ended to leave all sorts of problems
for the redefined group of practitioners to resolve”

– Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)

F u r t h e r mo r e …

• “Kuhn suggested that questions about
whether a discipline is or is not a science
can be answered only when members of
a scholarly community who doubt their
status achieve consensus about their past
and present accomplishments.”
-Kuhn Outline and Study Guide,
Frank Pajares, Emory University

Bi o me t r i c s Hi s t o r y –
T h e S h o r t Ve r s i o n
• 1880 – Bertillion
• 1903 – Will and William West
• 1963 - Fingerprint
• 1964 – Voice
• 1972 – Hand
• 1976 – Retinal
• 1983 – Signature
• 1985 – Keystroke
• 1987 – Face
• 1992 – First Biometrics Consortium Conference
• 1993 – Daubert v. Merrill Dow Pharmaceutical (509 U.S. 579)
• 1994 – Iris
• 1999 – IAFIS Operational
• 2000 – Facial Recognition Vendor Test; CESG Biometrics Product
Test
• 2001 – Terrorist attacks (Boon to the industry, or worst thing
that could have happened to it?)

Bi o me t r i c s Co n s o r t i u m Co n f e r e n c e
At t e n d a n c e

1000
900
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
Oct 92
Jan 93
Jun 93
Nov 93
May 94
Oct 94
Mar 95
Jun 96
Apr 97
Dec 97
Sep 98
Sep 99
Sep 00
Feb 02
Sep 02
Sep 03

Bi o me t r i c s Co n s o r t i u m
l i s t s e r v Me s s a g e s

2500

2000

1500

1000

500

0
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

• Very few discussions on biometrics research. Why?
– Good scientific practice emphasizes an accumulation of
peer-approved evidence, not persistent marketing of a
theory/viewpoint to the point of submission.

Bi o me t r i c s Ca t a l o g
Ne ws Ar t i c l e s

400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
03

04

4
3

4
03
3

4
-0
l-0

l-0
-0

-0
v-

n-
p-

ar
ay

ay
Ju

Ju
No

Ja
Se

M
M

M

Bi o me t r i c s i n
Ma i n s t r e a m Co mme r c e

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Bi o me t r i c s i n Ho l l y wo o d

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“Bi o me t r i c s ” Re s e a r c h ?

• Research is “a strenuous and devoted
attempt to force nature into the
conceptual boxes supplied by
professional education.”
– Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Bi o me t r i c s i n Un i v e r s i t i e s
• Most universities aren’t structured
to promote cross-discipline
activities

• Academic prestige doesn’t come
from “biometrics” but from the
individual disciplines

• Young academics seem to have an
above average degree of social
consciousness. Do current
technical research curriculums, by
focusing strictly on technical
issues, erode this consciousness?

Do W Al wa y s Re me mb e r o u r Ba s i c s ?
e
• Bowyer, et al. “A Survey of 3D and Multi-Modal 3D+2D Face
Recognition.” Notre Dame Department of Computer Science &
Engineering Technical Report, January 2004
– Seventeen research papers on 3D Face Recognition
– Eleven showed performance ≥ 97%

200

180

160

# Subjects per Test
140

120

100

80

60

40

20

0

Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Ar e we p u s h i n g o u r s e l v e s e n o u g h ?

• It seems biometric researchers
publish multiple papers each
year instead of focusing on one
seminal paper. Why?
– Is this what they are being
funded to do?
– Does the recent high interest
in the technology, combined
with the sparse number of
respected researchers, lead to
little competition to get
published (i.e. – no pressure to
write a good paper as anything
written will be published)?

T h e Gr o wi n g Pe r c e p t i o n

My Vi e w
• Biometrics is a discipline, formed to address operational
needs, that has a systems-based foundation made of
theories and truths from multiple scientific, sociological
and legal fields.

“All Science is
Interdisciplinary” –
2003 Nobel Lecture

Real advancement will
not occur until we
collectively reach this
consensus and act
accordingly.

Ku h n ’s “P a r a d i g ms ”

• Paradigm
– “universally recognized scientific achievements that
for a time provide model problems and solutions to a
community of practitioners.”
– “acquisition of a paradigm and of the more esoteric
type of research it permits is a sign of maturity in the
development of any given scientific field”
– Without a paradigm, research:
• is more random
• is restricted to data that is already available
• results are oftentimes viewed as equally relevant
• produces less scientific literature

T h e Be n e f i t o f a Pa r a d i g m

• Science progresses because members of a
mature scientific community work from a
single paradigm or from a closely related
set
– help scientific communities bound their
discipline in that they help the scientists to
• Create avenues of inquiry
• Formulate questions
• Select methods with which to examine
questions
• Define areas of relevance

On c e Co n s e n s u s
Ac h i e v e d o n a P a r a d i g m

• A paradigm transforms a group into a profession or,
at least a discipline. From this follow:
– Formation of specialized journals
– Foundation of professional societies
– Claim to a special place in academe (and academe’s
curriculum)
– Promulgation of scholarly articles intended for and
“addressed only to professional colleagues, whose
knowledge of a shared paradigm can be assumed and who
prove to be the only ones able to read the papers”
– Textbooks
A paradigm guides the whole group’s
research, and it is this criterion that most
clearly proclaims a field a science.

A Bi o me t r i c s “P a r a d i g m”

• Kuhn – when paradigms first appear they
are “limited in scope and in precision”.
They “gain status because they are more
successful…in solving a few problems
that the group of practitioners has come
to recognize as acute.” (acute:
important/crucial)
• An initial Biometrics Paradigm:
“Biometrics is a discipline, formed to address
operational needs, that has a systems-based
foundation made of theories and truths from
multiple scientific, sociological and legal fields.”

Ho w d o we g e t t h e r e f r o m h e r e ?

• Refocus Research Efforts
– Away from the “conceptual boxes supplied
by professional education”
– Towards our new biometrics paradigm
• Application/Function driven
• Research should be multidisciplinary
• Maintains usage of scientific principles

THE BIOMETRICS PARADIGM
“Biometrics is a discipline,
formed to address operational
needs, that has a systems-based
foundation made of theories and
truths from multiple scientific,
sociological and legal fields.”

Re f o c u s Re s e a r c h Ef f o r t s

• Work on operationally significant problems.
25 FRVT 2002, FRVT 2002,
Outdoor Pose Algorithm Error Rat
Frequency of Score

20 Experimental
Frequency
15 Control Algorithm Error Rate
Frequency
10

5

0
0.00-0.05
0.05-0.10
0.10-0.15
0.15-0.20
0.20-0.25
0.25-0.30
0.30-0.35
0.35-0.40
0.40-0.45
0.45-0.50
0.50-0.55
0.55-0.60
0.60-0.65
0.65-0.70
0.70-0.75
0.75-0.80
0.80-0.85
0.85-0.90
0.90-0.95
0.95-1.00
Error Rate Bins

• J.P. Phillips and E.M. Newton. "Meta- “Biometrics is a discipline,
Analysis of Face Recognition Algorithms." formed to address operational
Fifth IEEE International Conference on
Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition,
Washington, D.C., May 2002 foundation made of theories and

• All research needs to be done in view of the system
and its operational function.


• Be cognizant of, and develop technologies that are
considerate of, social, legal and privacy issues
– It is NOT someone else’s problem
– Scientist’s non-technical thinking needs to go beyond
simply obtaining IRB approval for experiments

•But I’m a scientist
–You’re a scientist working on
operational systems
–Before commercializing the lighting
industry, Edison also had to invent light
sockets with on-off switches!
•Isn’t it better to do it now than at formed to address operational
the end? needs, that has a systems-based

Sh a r e Re s u l t s i n t h e
Bi o me t r i c s Co mmu n i t y


En s u r e Ac c u r a t e
P u b l i c Di s c u s s i o n s

- Science for the 21st Century

Mo r e Ac a d e mi c I n t e r e s t
i n Bi o me t r i c s

- Science for the 21st Century

• The federal government (and other
employers) need graduates that have solid
backgrounds in technology, legal/social
issues, and economics so they can solve
real-world problems.
• Biometrics is the perfect case study!
– Relevant
– No easy answers
– Spans multiple disciplines
– Lessons learned can be ported to other
issues

Su mma r y
• Our biometrics paradigm:
– Bounds the problem (guides research)
– Leaves lots of unanswered questions

SCIENCE!
• More than 15 years worth?
– Promotes respect in academe
• Attracts the best & brightest
– “points us toward innovative solutions to
today’s major challenges, provides the
foundation for economic growth and
development, and enhances our quality of
life.”

I f t h e wo r l d d i d n ’t
h a v e b i o me t r i c s …

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BCC 2004 - Research Needs In Biometrics

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