Our glossary provides brief definitions and explanations of terms used on the website. If you cannot find the term you are looking for, please email us so that we can consider adding it to the glossary.
| Age Estimation | Age estimation is how a person’s age is determined based on biometric features. |
| Anti-Money Laundering (AML) | The laws and regulations that aim to prevent people from disguising illegitimately obtained income as legitimately obtained income. Know Your Customer (KYC) is one aspect of AML. |
| Anti-Spoofing | Anti-spoofing includes, but is a broader concept than, liveness detection. In the context of facial recognition, it refers to all processes that aim to detect fraud and other attempts to bypass the system. |
| Artificial Intelligence (AI) | Computer systems that are able to perform tasks that are usually associated with human intelligence. AI includes, but is broader than, the concepts of machine learning and deep learning. |
| Algorithm | In computer science and mathematics, an algorithm is a self-contained sequence of actions to be performed. It is a step by step method of solving a problem. Algorithms perform calculation, data processing, and/or automated reasoning tasks. |
| Analytics | Analytics is the scientific and systematic processing of meaningful patterns which can be found in data. It is concerns turning raw data into meaningful insight for making better decisions. Analytics relies on application such as statistics, computer programming, and operations research in order to quantify and gain insight to the meanings of data. It is especially useful in areas which record a lot of data or information. |
| Anonymous Video Analytics | Anonymous Video Analytics is a technology that uses pattern detection algorithms to scan real-time video feeds. The algorithms look for patterns that match the software’s understanding of faces. The data gathered from video feeds is logged but not stored in the system – with nothing in the process recognizing the individuals who passed in front of the sensors. |
| Application Program Interface (API) | An application programming interface (API), in computer programming, is a set of subroutine definitions, communication protocols, and tools for building software. In simple terms, an API specifies how software components should interact through a set of clearly defined methods of communication among various components. A good API makes it easier to develop a computer program by providing all the building blocks. These are then put together by the programmer. |
| Audience Segmentation | Audience segmentation is a method of dividing people into homogeneous subgroups based upon defined criterion such as demographics, psychographics, product usage, communication behaviors and media use. |
| Big Data | Big data is a term for extremely large data sets that when analyzed reveal patterns, trends, and associations, especially relating to human behavior and interactions. For some applications, this data maybe too large or complex for traditional data-processing application software to adequately deal with. |
| Biometric Data | Biometric Data is a term for data points that define the identity or qualities of a person, for example facial landmarks or estimated age and gender. |
| Biometrics | Biometrics is a term used to refer to technologies used to detect and recognize human physical characteristics. Different aspects of biometrics include biometric data, matching and verification. |
| Computer Vision | Computer vision is an interdisciplinary field that concerns how computers can be made for gaining high-level understanding from digital images or videos. |
| Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) | A type of deep neural network (DNN), where the layers are structured differently to traditional DNNs to optimize for image processing tasks. |
| Data Analysis | Data analysis is a process of critically examining data with the goal of discovering useful information, suggesting conclusions, and supporting decision-making. Data analysis has multiple aspect and approaches, encompassing diverse techniques under a variety of names, in different business, science, and social science domains. |
| Deep Learning | Deep Learning is the application of artificial neural networks to learning tasks that contain more than one hidden layer. It is part of a broader family of machine learning methods based on learning data representations, as opposed to task-specific algorithms. |
| Digital Signage | Digital signage is any digital sign board, billboard and similar display devices used for displaying visual information, most commonly in outdoor public areas. |
| Deep Neural Network (DNN) | An AI algorithm inspired by the structure of the human brain, which performs a mathematical computation in order to map an input to the desired output. A DNN contains more than one hidden layer (groups of neurons) between the input layer and the output layer. |
| Emotion Recognition | Emotion Recognition is a technology that can read one or more of the basic six emotions (happiness, surprise, anger, disgust, fear, sadness) from a given face. |
| Eye Tracking | Eye Tracking refers to the activity of studying the way that people’s eyes move in order to discover what, especially in advertisements, attracts their attention |
| Face Detection | Face Detection is localization and classification of faces in an image or video stream. |
| Face Landmarks/Facial Landmarks | Face Landmarks are pre-defined points on a face that can be located using Computer Vision methods. Example landmarks are the corners of the mouth and eyes. The relative orientation of Face Landmarks can be used to recognize emotions. The face can also be warped to new facial expressions using the landmarks. |
| Face Recognition | Face Recognition is the task of determining the identity of a face in an image. It is typically used for comparing two faces for identity or by comparing against a database of faces. |
| Face Tracking | Face Tracking is a form of technology, given a face detection, used for tracking the movement of the face in a video stream. Tracking, which is essentially motion estimation, is an integral part of most face processing systems. |
| Face Authentication | The process of using facial images to determine whether someone is, in fact, who they say they are. Face authentication falls under the broader scope of face recognition. |
| Face Verification | Another term for face authentication. |
| Face Grouping | The process of sorting facial images into groups based on identity or based on similar facial features. |
| Face Search | The process of using one facial image to search for similar faces or for other images of the same face. |
| General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) | A European regulation that seeks to protect the data privacy of EU residents. The GDPR provides, among other things, how and by whom personally identifiable information may be collected, processed, and stored. |
| Know Your Customer (KYC) | KYC procedures include verifying the identity of your customers, determining the purposes for which they want to use your products, and assessing the risks associated with your customers. Financial service providers are required by law to implement KYC procedures. Some of the reasons for this include: preventing fraud, preventing tax evasion, preventing money laundering, and countering the financing of terrorism. KYC is sometimes also referred to as Customer Due Diligence, or CDD. |
| Liveness detection | In the context of facial recognition, the feature or features that ensure that the facial images submitted for identification or verification are of a real person, and/or that the images are taken in real time. The process of ensuring that the software is not being fooled by masks, copies of images, etc. |
| Machine Learning | Machine Learning is a set of specialized statistical methods that automatically learn to find patterns in their input to all sorts of digital tasks. |
| Narrowcasting | Transmitting a message to a carefully selected audience. The aim of narrowcasting is to ensure that the right message reaches the right people in the right place and at the right time. Click here for a more detailed explanation of narrowcasting and how it works. |
| Occlusion | In the context of face analysis, occlusion refers to the situation where a face is partially hidden, for example by sunglasses or a mask. |
| Python | Python is a widely used high-level programming language created by Guido van Rossum for general-purpose programming. It was first released in 1991. |
| Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) | The Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) is a European regulation that each EU country has to integrate into their own national legislation from 14 September 2019. It regulates non-cash payments, payment institutions, and payment account information services. Some of the major changes being introduced by the PSD2 include more stringent payment authentication (Strong Customer Authentication) requirements, provisions for new types of payment institutions as competitors to banks, and provisions for information sharing between banks and third parties (only with the account holder’s consent). |
| Programmatic Advertising | An automated process for buying and selling digital advertising space. Click here to learn more about what programmatic advertising is and how it works. |
| Presentation Attack Detection | See “Anti-Spoofing” |
| Privacy by Default | In the context of product releases, privacy by default refers to the situation where the strictest privacy settings are applied by default, without the user having to do anything. It also means that only the necessary personal data is collected for the specific purpose for which it is to be used. |
| Software Development Kit (SDK) | An SDK provides a set of tools and resources – usually including code samples, APIs, libraries, documentation, and debugging tools – that you can use to make your own application or software for a particular platform. SDKs are useful for simplifying and speeding up the software development process. |
| Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) | Using two independent methods to verify someone’s identity. See Strong Customer Authentication |
