Face authentication is gaining much more attention relative to other biometric recognition technologies due to not only the simple convenience it provides but also its ability to avoid various privacy issues. As facial information is publically displayed, there is little concern for a user to show his face to the device.

However when compared with other biometric information such as iris and fingerprint, be it intentional or unintentional, one’s face is extremely variable and easy to change. A common and well known variable is glasses. It is very difficult for an accurate high performance machine vision engine to successfully identify a person with different glasses. An individual growing a beard would also encounter such complications. It would be very inconvenient for a user to continually reenroll their face every time a change occurs.

To overcome these drawbacks, Suprema’s FaceStation supports up to five (5) sub-ID’s per each user. Each sub-ID consists of a set of face templates and can be represented by an optional thumbnail image to easily distinguish between each of the sub-IDs stored on the device. Administrators can now manage the variations within the face by registering new sub-IDs. Individuals with glasses may now enroll variants of their face with/without glasses. Individuals growing a beard will be able to register gradual variations, so a full cycle would only have to be registered once.