A secure face recognition scheme using noisy images based on kernel sparse representation

This paper proposes a secure face recognition scheme based on kernel sparse representation where facial images are visually encrypted. In the proposed scheme, a noisy image is added to all facial images, including a query image, to protect facial images. Noise-added facial images are further clipped for preventing unauthorized noise removing. Thanks to these strategies, a leakage of facial images will not disclose users´ privacy, even the noisy image is also leaked. That is, the proposed scheme protects users´ privacy and does not need to manage the noisy image securely. The proposed scheme directly applies kernel sparse representation based face recognition to noisy facial images, viz., decryption-free. Experimental results demonstrate that the face recognition performance of kernel sparse representation is not degraded, even facial images are visually encrypted.