Papers › PIC-Score: Probabilistic Interpretable Comparison Score for Optimal Matching...

PIC-Score: Probabilistic Interpretable Comparison Score for Optimal Matching Confidence in Single- and Multi-Biometric (Face) Recognition

22 Nov 2022arXiv:2211.12483archive 2025-07-28

Pedro C. Neto, Ana F. Sequeira, Jaime S. Cardoso, Philipp Terhörst

In the context of biometrics, matching confidence refers to the confidence that a given matching decision is correct. Since many biometric systems operate in critical decision-making processes, such as in forensics investigations, accurately and reliably stating the matching confidence becomes of high importance. Previous works on biometric confidence estimation can well differentiate between high and low confidence, but lack interpretability. Therefore, they do not provide accurate probabilistic estimates of the correctness of a decision. In this work, we propose a probabilistic interpretable comparison (PIC) score that accurately reflects the probability that the score originates from samples of the same identity. We prove that the proposed approach provides optimal matching confidence. Contrary to other approaches, it can also optimally combine multiple samples in a joint PIC score which further increases the recognition and confidence estimation performance. In the experiments, the proposed PIC approach is compared against all biometric confidence estimation methods available on four publicly available databases and five state-of-the-art face recognition systems. The results demonstrate that PIC has a significantly more accurate probabilistic interpretation than similar approaches and is highly effective for multi-biometric recognition. The code is publicly-available.

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Tasks

Decision MakingFace Recognition

Results from the paper archive 2025-07-28

TaskDatasetModelMetricValueRank at snapshotLeaderboardReport
Face Recognition Adience PIC - MagFace FNMR [%] @ 10-3 FMR 9.75 #1 of 3 Archive leaderboard report
Face Recognition Adience PIC - QMagFace FNMR [%] @ 10-3 FMR 9.78 #2 of 3 Archive leaderboard report
Face Recognition Adience PIC - ArcFace FNMR [%] @ 10-3 FMR 10.1 #3 of 3 Archive leaderboard report
Face Recognition Color FERET PIC - QMagFace FNMR [%] @ 10-3 FMR 3.24 #1 of 4 Archive leaderboard report
Face Recognition Color FERET PIC - MagFace FNMR [%] @ 10-3 FMR 3.92 #2 of 4 Archive leaderboard report
Face Recognition Color FERET PIC - ArcFace FNMR [%] @ 10-3 FMR 4.22 #3 of 4 Archive leaderboard report
Face Recognition LFW PIC - MagFace FNMR [%] @ 10-3 FMR 0.05 #14 of 16 Archive leaderboard report
Face Recognition LFW PIC - QMagFace FNMR [%] @ 10-3 FMR 0.05 #15 of 16 Archive leaderboard report
Face Recognition LFW PIC - ArcFace FNMR [%] @ 10-3 FMR 4.38 #16 of 16 Archive leaderboard report
Face Recognition MORPH PIC - ArcFace FNMR [%] @ 10-3 FMR 0.05 #1 of 3 Archive leaderboard report
Face Recognition MORPH PIC - MagFace FNMR [%] @ 10-3 FMR 0.96 #2 of 3 Archive leaderboard report
Face Recognition MORPH PIC - QMagFace FNMR [%] @ 10-3 FMR 0.96 #3 of 3 Archive leaderboard report

Ranks are positions in the archive's leaderboards as they stood at the 2025-07-28 snapshot. Results published since then are not among these rows, so a rank here is not a current standing.

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