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The prevalent commercial deployment of automated facial analysis systems such as face recognition as a robust authentication method has increasingly fueled scientific attention. Current machine learning algorithms allow for a relatively reliable detection, recognition, and categorization of face images comprised of age, race, and gender. Algorithms with such biased data are bound to produce skewed results. It leads to a significant decrease in the performance of state-of-the-art models when applied to images of gender or ethnicity groups. In this paper, we study the gender bias in facial recognition with gender balanced and imbalanced training sets using five traditional machine learning algorithms. We aim to report the machine learning classifiers which are inclined towards gender bias and the ones which mitigate it. Miss rates metric is effective in finding out potential bias in predictions. Our study utilizes miss rates metric along with a standard metric such as accuracy, precision or recall to evaluate possible gender bias effectively. 

In the realm of computer security, the username/password standard is becoming increasingly antiquated. Usage of the same username and password across various accounts can leave a user open to potential vulnerabilities. Authentication methods of the future need to maintain the ability to provide secure access without a reduction in speed. Facial recognition technologies are quickly becoming integral parts of user security, allowing for a secondary level of user authentication. Augmenting traditional username and password security with facial biometrics has already seen impressive results; however, studying these techniques is necessary to determine how effective these methods are within various parameters. A Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) is a powerful classification approach which is often used for image identification and verification. Quite recently, CNNs have shown great promise in the area of facial image recognition. The comparative study proposed in this paper offers an in-depth analysis of several state-of-the-art deep learning based-facial recognition technologies, to determine via accuracy and other metrics which of those are most effective. In our study, VGG-16 and VGG-19 showed the highest levels of image recognition accuracy, as well as F1-Score. The most favorable configurations of CNN should be documented as an effective way to potentially augment the current username/password standard by increasing the current method’s security with additional facial biometrics. 

In the ever-changing world of computer security and user authentication, the username/password standard is becoming increasingly outdated. Using the same username and password across multiple accounts and websites leaves a user open to vulnerabilities, and the need to remember multiple usernames and passwords feels very unnecessary in the current digital age. Authentication methods of the future need to be reliable and fast, while maintaining the ability to provide secure access. Augmenting traditional username-password standard with face biometric is proposed in the literature to enhance the user authentication. However, this technique still needs an extensive evaluation study to show how reliable and effective it will be under different settings. Local Binary Pattern (LBP) is a discrete yet powerful texture classification scheme, which works particularly well with image classification for facial recognition. The system proposed here strives to examine and test various LBP configurations to determine their image classification accuracy. The most favorable configurations of LBP should be examined as a potential way to augment the current username and password standard by increasing their security with facial biometrics. 

We are creating a streamlined way to adapt WebIDs [1], and biometrics [2] to the cyber world. This involves building a user authentication system that enables quick, fast and secure access. It is understood that compared to traditional username and password user authentication, WebIDs are designed to provide such services. Nevertheless, if an intruder either has direct access to the user's computer or somehow gets the unique certificate of the user, important information can be stolen with solely the use of WebIDs. Since biometric data (e.g. fingerprints, iris scanning, etc.) is unique and not easily duplicated, this possibility can be avoided by including biometrics in the authentication process. We also include an enrollment protocol that checks whether a user has a WebID while trying to access a server. If they do, we allow the user access to the server, and if they do not, by accessing their own server, we register the user for a WebID with their permission. Implementing these features in the WebID protocol will greatly enhance user authentication safety.