Youverse enables people to access any service. With our state-of-the-art technology designed in the most developer-friendly way, one can implement user access to online services, physical settings, opening bank accounts, or performing payments online and in-store in minutes.

With the increasing popularity of face authentication, the need to adopt bias-free, robust, and reliable algorithms is essential. Face biometrics has emerged as a technology to improve security; however, fraudsters always find ways to exploit the technology gaps. Even with recent deep learning advancements, they find their way to infiltrate customer signup or verification procedures, to name a few.

Building a robust registration and authentication process is a must for any organization in any use case. An ideal flow to engage real customers would include the following steps:

• Identity Proof-Users show a personal identity issued by a governmental or certified authority;
• Biometric Validation - A live picture of the user (selfie) is compared with personal identity biometric data;
• Fraud/spoofing screening - Data is validated for fraud/spoofing attempts;
• Robust MFA - Users can re-authenticate securely and with a great user experience.

Our previous blog posts have addressed identity proof, biometric validation, and robust MFA where we leverage the power of face biometrics to implement our patent-pending privacy architecture. Today, we will talk about anti-spoofing, fraud screening, particularly in the live picture acquisition process.

Anti-spoofing liveness detection: a must!

Liveness detection is the ability to detect whether a real person is using a system. Impersonation via face biometrics is something very easy to achieve since cell phone devices are everywhere, and a monitor is always within reach of a fraudster. There are many types of face spoofing attacks, from paper prints, replay attacks, 3d masks, and deep fakes, to name a few.

Usually, liveness detection is divided into active or passive liveness. The large set of solutions use active liveness detection; let's understand the differences.

Active liveness algorithms

The name says it all. This type of liveness solution requires the user to be active and perform a set of predefined actions, including facial expressions, blinking eyes, and speaking words. 

Active liveness in general requires describing to the user what he needs to do, therefore fraudsters are lectured with hints on how to spoof the system. This great disadvantage alongside the time and difficulty in passing the spoofing detection challenges result in a massive percentage of users abandoning the registration or authentication processes.

Passive liveness

Again, passive says it all. Passive algorithms are designed so that the user does not realize the spoofing detection process is taking place. Usually, these techniques use deep learning analysis of a single frame, the same frame you also use for biometric validation. Also, as it is unclear what the algorithm is analyzing for fraudsters, it is more reliable and difficult to spoof.

So, which one should I choose?

Our vision is to bring secure, private, robust, frictionless authentication to every person, knowing that they are in control of their data. That's why we believe passive liveness is the future and it is part of our products offer. More organizations adopt passive-liveness solutions to provide their customers excellent security without sacrificing user experience. Some reasons for this are:

• Lowers abandon rates significantly;
• Faster authentication process;
• Requires less input from end-user;
• Closes security gaps in facial biometric systems.

We offer the possibility to test YouFace instantly and for free. We also provide a demo UI that allows you to test the API without any code integration! You need to go to your Dashboard on our Website, and under the API Access section, you will find the Demo URL.

About Youverse

Youverse simplifies all customer interactions with private, convenient, and secure face authentication on any device. Ranking Top 5 for accuracy in live face matching in the combined business regions of Europe and the Americas, as independently certified by the international benchmark, Youverse enables a fully handsfree experience, bringing unprecedented levels of convenience and accuracy when adopting face authentication in daily routines.

For more information, visit the company website, its LinkedIn, or join our Discord community.