On the use of SIFT features for face authentication

Several pattern recognition and classification techniques
have been applied to the biometrics domain. Among them,
an interesting technique is the Scale Invariant Feature
Transform (SIFT), originally devised for object recognition.
Even if SIFT features have emerged as a very powerful image
descriptors, their employment in face analysis context
has never been systematically investigated.
This paper investigates the application of the SIFT approach
in the context of face authentication. In order to determine
the real potential and applicability of the method,
different matching schemes are proposed and tested using
the BANCA database and protocol, showing promising results.