The working groups of ISO/IEC JTC1 Subcommittee 37 (SC37) on biometrics met in January 2024 for face-to-face meetings with remote participation of several experts. A number of relevant standards were progressed. This report focuses on the activities of the Working Group on Biometric Data Interchange Formats (WG3) and its collaborations with the other working groups within SC37. Working Group 3 (Biometric Data Interchange Formats) hosted up to 97 registered experts over five days of meetings.
In addition to the (extensible) biometric data interchange formats, a second working area of the WG3 is the field of biometric sample quality. The standard ISO/IEC 29794-1 Biometric sample quality – Part 1: Framework is currently being balloted as Final Draft International Standard (FDIS), see here.
This framework standard establishes the distinction between quality scores and quality components. Unified quality scores are predictive of recognition performance and are represented as integers in the range 0 to 100 (with higher being better). Quality components are measurements of certain information contained in a biometric sample. The component values do not necessarily imply “higher is better”. Quality components can contribute to the computation of (unified) quality scores and facilitate actionable feedback. The concept of error-versus-discard characteristics and the provision for reporting the operational relevance of quality measures along with other evaluation methodologies are included in the revision of this standard.
Regarding the project ISO/IEC 29794-4 Information Technology — Biometric sample quality — Part 4: Finger image data, several comments were discussed to finalise the text. The definitions of the quality components (a.k.a. NFIQ2 quality features) are now refined to align with ISO/IEC 29794-1. The standard will ensure consistency of quality component definitions with the framework. After the disposition of comments, WG3 decided to promote ISO/IEC 29794-4 to the next level, which is the Final Draft International Standard (FDIS). The NFIQ2.0 NIST Interagency Report (NISTIR 8382) remains published here. For the reference implementation NFIQ2, see here.
ISO/IEC JTC1 SC37 WG3 intensively discussed the revision project ISO/IEC 29794-5 Biometric sample quality – Part 5: Face image data. This part is developed as an international standard and will relate to quality requirements from both ISO/IEC 19794-5:2011 and ISO/IEC 39794-5:2019, see here.
It will also be applicable to scenarios with relaxed quality requirements such as surveillance applications. Good progress was achieved on the definition of numerous quality components, which will provide accurate and specific elements in a quality vector such as information on the correctness of a pose or the sharpness of the face image (and many others). ISO/IEC 29794-5 is now distributed as the second Draft International Standard (DIS), see here.
The members of WG3 were informed about the findings of the NIST FATE SIDD face image quality test campaign. SIDD is an abbreviation for Specific Image Defect Detection testing and evaluates the prediction capability of unified quality scoring algorithms and several quality components. The test report can be found here.
Many of the quality component definitions are now aligned with the code in the reference implementation Open-source Face Image Quality (OFIQ), which is available here.
Furthermore, the revision project ISO/IEC 30107-1 Biometric presentation attack detection – Part 1: Framework has been completed. The revision has harmonized the standard with the harmonized vocabulary ISO/IEC 2382-37 to integrate the concept of bona fide presentation. The standard is now freely available here.
The revision project ISO/IEC 30107-3 Biometric presentation attack detection – Part 3: Testing and reporting is completed. The standard establishes principles and methods for the performance assessment of presentation attack detection (PAD) mechanisms and defines the reporting of test results from evaluations of PAD mechanisms here.
Moreover, the work on revising ISO/IEC 30107-4 is now completed. Part 4 is a testing profile for the evaluation of mobile devices. The profile serves the general mobile device PAD testing and FIDO-specific testing. The standard is available here. You can find more information on the scope and structure of ISO/IEC JTC1 SC37 here.
The next set of working group meetings will be held again as face-to-face meetings with online participation and will take place in Bertinoro, Italy, from July 15 to 19, 2024.