Spoofing faces using makeup: An investigative study

Abstract

Makeup can be used to alter the facial appearance of a person. Previous studies have established the potential of using makeup to obfuscate the identity of an individual with respect to an automated face matcher. In this work, we analyze the potential of using makeup for spoofing an identity, where an individual attempts to impersonate another person's facial appearance. In this regard, we first assemble a set of face images downloaded from the internet where individuals use facial cosmetics to impersonate celebrities. We next determine the impact of this alteration on two different face matchers. Experiments suggest that automated face matchers are vulnerable to makeup-induced spoofing and that the success of spoofing is impacted by the appearance of the impersonator's face and the target face being spoofed. Further, an identification experiment is conducted to show that the spoofed faces are successfully matched at better ranks after the application of makeup. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that systematically studies the impact of makeup-induced face spoofing on automated face recognition.