image Manipulation Attack Resolving Solutions
| Funding Agency: | European Commission |
| Team members: | The iMARS project gathers 24 partners from 12 European countries, recognised as leaders in their fields. They are grouped into 3 categories: Academic, Industrial and SME (Small and Medium Enterprises), and Government agencies. Full list. |
| Performance period: | September 2020 – September 2024 |
| Website: | https://imars-project.eu/ |
Project description:
The use of counterfeit travel documents at borders is a reality, which entails the risk of not identifying known criminals, including terrorists, or previously unknown subjects such as victims of human trafficking. Document fraud is one of the engines of organised crime in the European Union: although document fraud does not have a direct impact on most citizens in the European Union, it facilitates other serious and organised crime. It also has a strong impact on Members States since the financial consequences may be significant.
Though difficult to quantify, the variety of possible ID document frauds at borders is a reality that threatens politicians holding responsibility for borders as well as EU citizens. Based on the needs expressed by practitioners, the iMARS consortium has shaped a project that will:
- Improve the operational capacity of passport application and border control operators by providing both – short-term Adhoc solutions ensuring reliable passport application procedures – and mid-term solutions with no-reference and differential analysis solutions that can in particular detect manipulated and morphed passport images as well as document fraud. iMARS will provide:
- Image morphing and manipulation attack detection solutions to assess ID documents validity against document fraud, during enrolment and renewal steps, as well as at the border crossing stations.
- Document verification and fraud detection solutions to support border guards in the verification process by providing mobile tools that can check document’s integrity
To reach the targeted TRL6, these technologies will be validated in laboratory conditions using operational data collected from six border control sites (with border to countries outside the EU).
- Ensure the uptake of its outcomes after the project’s end. iMARS will:
- Promote usability/ergonomic aspects by providing training, guidelines and best practices to border guards and passport application officers.
- Contribute to the ongoing standardisation efforts in the field of Presentation Attack Detection and face image quality.
- Provide open access benchmarks (2 datasets with multiple enrolments morphed face images and border gate probe images) on a specific testing platform serving follow-on research activities.
- Ensure that the technologies developed are accepted by citizens and respect privacy and legal EU regulations.