Presentation Attack Detection (PAD)
Definition
Liveness checks that block spoofing with fake fingers, photos, iris printouts or cloned voice. Evaluated under ISO/IEC 30107.
- Function
- Liveness checks against spoofing
- Targets
- Fake fingers, photos, iris printouts, cloned voice
- Governing standard
- ISO/IEC 30107
- Alternate name
- Liveness detection
Common questions
How does PAD actually distinguish a live biometric sample from a fake one?+
PAD methods look for physiological signs a static artefact cannot reproduce, such as blood flow, pupil response, skin texture under varying light, or micro-movements during speech, and compare captured signals against known patterns of genuine versus artificial samples.
Why is PAD performance reported separately from match accuracy?+
A biometric system can have excellent recognition accuracy on genuine samples while still being vulnerable to spoofing, so ISO/IEC 30107 testing reports attack presentation classification error rates independently of the ordinary false match and false non-match rates.
Related terms
- Behavioural Biometric
- Trait rooted in learned action: voice, gait, signature dynamics, keystroke dynamics, mouse movement.
- Biometric
- Any measurable physiological or behavioural trait used to identify or verify an individual. Falls in the 'something you are' authentication category, distinct...
- Enrolment
- First-time capture of a biometric, feature extraction, and storage of the resulting template in the system database.
- FAR / FRR / EER
- False Acceptance Rate (imposter wrongly accepted), False Rejection Rate (genuine user wrongly rejected), and Equal Error Rate (operating point where FAR =...
- Identification (1:N)
- Searching a fresh sample against EVERY template in the database to find a match. Used by AFIS to hit a chance print...
- Physiological Biometric
- Trait rooted in body structure: fingerprint, iris, retina, face, palm print, palm vein, hand geometry, ear shape, DNA.
- Verification (1:1)
- Matching a fresh sample against ONE stored template tied to a claimed identity. Used to unlock a phone or authenticate a payment.