Former | Professional website of Sébastien Marcel

ROSALIND

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

ROSALIND focuses on defending digital identity systems against malicious AI-generated face images and manipulated identity documents.

The project combines two complementary goals: developing robust anti-fraud defenses for document images and selfie-videos, and using generative AI to improve the robustness and balance of authentication algorithms. It sits at the intersection of biometric security, digital identity, and applied trustworthy AI.

ROSALIND is a strong example of translational biometrics research with direct relevance to real-world identity verification.

SAFER

Tue, 01 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

SAFER addresses fairness and ethics in face recognition.

The project investigates how to assess and reduce unfair performance differences across demographic groups, with work spanning both training-time and scoring-time strategies. It also explores the role of synthetic and diverse datasets in improving the responsible development of face recognition systems.

SAFER reflects a broader commitment to trustworthy biometrics by combining technical performance with fairness, transparency, and responsible deployment.

BATL

Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

BATL contributed to biometric anti-spoofing research in the context of the IARPA ODIN program, which aimed to strengthen biometric systems against known and unknown presentation attacks.

Within this line of work, research focused on robust face presentation-attack detection, anomaly detection, multi-channel sensing, and the creation of challenging datasets and protocols for evaluating spoof resilience. At Idiap, this effort is closely associated with work on multi-channel face anti-spoofing and datasets such as HQ-WMCA, supporting reproducible research on secure biometric acquisition.

BEAT

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

BEAT (Biometrics Evaluation and Testing) was a European FP7 project focused on creating an open and reproducible framework for the evaluation of biometric technologies.

The project addressed three complementary goals: transparent benchmarking of biometric systems, vulnerability analysis, and support for standardized evaluation procedures. It contributed to reproducible research practices in biometrics and helped establish evaluation workflows that were both rigorous and operationally relevant.

This project also supported the broader vision of open platforms and tools for the community, connecting research, benchmarking, and technology assessment.

TABULA RASA

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

TABULA RASA was a major European research project dedicated to understanding and mitigating spoofing attacks against biometric systems.

The project investigated the vulnerability of biometric modalities such as face and fingerprint to direct attacks and developed methods to detect and counter such threats. It played an important role in shaping the modern field of presentation-attack detection and helped establish anti-spoofing as a core topic in trustworthy biometrics.

This project remains a key milestone in the evolution of biometric security research and in the translation of anti-spoofing knowledge to practical evaluation settings.

MOBIO

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

MOBIO focused on mobile biometrics under realistic usage conditions, combining face and voice for authentication in noisy and unconstrained environments.

The project investigated robust face localisation, speech segmentation, video-based face authentication, speaker authentication, multimodal fusion, and unsupervised model adaptation over time. It also contributed a widely used multimodal database collected across multiple countries and sites, helping establish strong evaluation benchmarks for mobile biometric research.