The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has announced the return of its flagship biometrics event, the International Face and Fingerprint Performance Conference (IFPC), scheduled to take place online from April 1 to 3, 2025. Hosted in partnership with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate (DHS S&T) and the European Association for Biometrics (EAB), IFPC 2025 is a free virtual conference that will convene a global community of experts to explore the technical dimensions of biometric systems.
This year’s conference will focus on the performance, transparency, and trustworthiness of face and fingerprint recognition technologies, covering a wide array of topics such as demographic impacts, presentation attack detection, risk management, and quality assessment. According to NIST, IFPC aims to “bring greater maturity” to biometric technologies by fostering collaboration among developers, researchers, policy makers, and operational users.
A Deep Technical Dive Into Face and Fingerprint Recognition
The three-day agenda includes four focused sessions on facial recognition and two on fingerprint technologies, with each day beginning at 6:50 a.m. EDT. The opening keynote will be delivered by Arun Vemury of DHS S&T, setting the stage for a technically rigorous program that features representatives from NIST, the FBI, IDEMIA, Australia’s Department of Home Affairs, and various research institutions and industry leaders.
Among the topics featured in the facial recognition track are:
- Demographic Effects and Age Estimation: Presentations on FATE Age Estimation (Kayee Hanaoka, NIST) and FRTE Face in Video Evaluations (Austin Hom, NIST)
- Image Quality and Standards: Including Open Source Face Image Quality (Johannes Merkle, secunet), and ISO/IEC JTC1 SC37 developments (Patrick Grother, NIST)
- Attack Detection and Morphing: With talks from Mei Ngan (NIST) on morph detection, Jason Prince (Australia Home Affairs) on operational attack detection, and Brendan Klare (ROC) on deepfake challenges
A Dedicated Track on Friction Ridge Recognition
Reintroduced this year, the friction ridge recognition track—focused on fingerprint and palm print technologies—will feature two sessions chaired by Christoph Busch (Hochschule Darmstadt) and Gregory Fiumara (NIST). Key topics include:
- Fingerprint Image Quality and Statistical Models: Updates on NFIQ 2.3 (Fiumara), contactless quality assessment (Laurenz Ruzicka, AIT), and statistical evidence modeling (Tony Koertner, U.S. Army)
- Emerging Technologies and Industry Insights: Presentations on synthetic data in latent fingerprint identification (Igor Janos, Innovatrics), 3D fingerprint recognition (Tom Michalsky, IDloop), and the role of AI in domain-specific fingerprint applications (Evaldas Borcovas, Neurotechnology)
Also notable is a panel featuring Vemury, SAIC researchers Richard Plesh and Yevgeniy Sirotin, who will present a new framework for remote identity verification.
Open Call for Presentations
In addition to the structured agenda, the conference welcomes technical and policy-oriented presentation proposals addressing any factors affecting face and fingerprint recognition performance. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to: accuracy measurement, standards development, dataset preparation, presentation attack mitigation, morphing detection, age estimation, and applications of biometric technologies in non-cooperative environments.
IFPC 2025 is open to all and free of charge, continuing NIST’s tradition of promoting inclusive dialogue around biometric science and its real-world deployment. Interested participants can register via the official NIST event page, where the full agenda is also available for download.
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March 31, 2025 – by Cass Kennedy
