IARPA launches Face Recognition Prize Challenge

The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, announced on May 17 that it has launched the Face Recognition Prize Challenge—“FRPC”—in partnership with the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The challenge aims to improve recognition of face images acquired without capture constraints—unconstrained images captured in the “wild.”

“Whether focused on preventing the next random act of violence or catching a child predator, face recognition has become an essential tool for professionals who strive to ensure public safety,” said Dr. Chris Boehnen, IARPA program manager. “The state-of-the-art is improving rapidly, due in large part to the availability of unconstrained training data, as well as the careful curation of evaluation data that’s balanced across many real-world scenarios.”

In 2014, IARPA launched its Janus program to dramatically improve face recognition performance in massive video collections. The FRPC compliments that program by allowing third party academic and industry research groups to showcase their own research advancements through participation in the prize challenge.

IARPA is conducting this challenge to invite the broader research community of industry and academia, both domestic and international, to participate in a convenient, efficient, and non-contractual way. The registration period will officially run until June 15, 2017. Participants will submit their algorithms for evaluation to IARPA’s partner, NIST. Winners are to be announced in October 2017.

To learn more about the Face Recognition Prize Challenge, including rules, criteria, and eligibility requirements, visit https://www.challenge.gov/challenge/face-recognition-prize-challenge/.

Source: IARPA