cannot access liveness endpoint

Here is the email I sent:

Dear Microsoft Research Team,

I am an independent researcher exploring biometric security systems and am writing to request access to Microsoft’s facial recognition and liveness detection technologies to support a public-interest research project focused on evaluating the effectiveness and robustness of liveness detection when coupled with facial recognition systems.

Our research aims to assess the performance of liveness detection mechanisms—such as detection of presentation attacks, spoofing attempts, and deepfakes—when used alongside facial recognition for identity verification. We are particularly interested in how these systems respond across diverse demographic groups and varying environmental conditions (e.g., lighting, device quality, and background), with the goal of identifying potential gaps or biases and improving system fairness and reliability.

Description of Research: We will conduct controlled experiments simulating a range of real-world and adversarial scenarios, including high-resolution image spoofing, replay attacks, 3D mask presentations, and synthetic face generation. The test set will include participants from a variety of demographic backgrounds. Quantitative analysis will focus on true acceptance/rejection rates, false positive rates for spoofing attempts, and demographic parity across performance metrics.

Test Suite description available upon request.

All participants will be fully informed of the nature of the study, provide explicit consent, and retain full control over their participation and data. 

Personally identifiable information will be handled with strict privacy safeguards and used solely for the purposes of this research. 

A sample consent form and data handling policy are available upon request.

We intend to publish aggregate findings in an open and transparent format to contribute to broader understanding and development of fair, secure biometric systems.

Thank you for considering this request. 

We believe this research aligns with Microsoft’s commitment to fairness, security, and transparency in AI, and we look forward to the possibility of working with you in advancing responsible innovation in this space.

Sincerely, Michael Liss

Hi Michael Liss

Sorry for the trouble.

I had connected with product group on similar query earlier.

They mentioned that they are currently prioritizing on future usage over academic research requests .

Thank you

@Manas Mohanty

I am sorry you confused my request as an academic research request - my use case is for a BUSINESS.

We will be providing a public method of "proving you are you" and providing the a way that others can "verify it's you" via our service.

The details at this point are under an NDA... but we require access to the face API to prototype and build a proof of concept. What I can tell you is this:

Our research aims to assess the performance of liveness detection mechanisms—such as detection of presentation attacks, spoofing attempts, and deepfakes—when used alongside facial recognition for identity verification. We are particularly interested in how these systems respond across diverse demographic groups and varying environmental conditions (e.g., lighting, device quality, and background), with the goal of identifying potential gaps or biases and improving system fairness and reliability.

Description of Research: We will conduct controlled experiments simulating a range of real-world and adversarial scenarios, including high-resolution image spoofing, replay attacks, 3D mask presentations, and synthetic face generation. The test set will include participants from a variety of demographic backgrounds. Quantitative analysis will focus on true acceptance/rejection rates, false positive rates for spoofing attempts, and demographic parity across performance metrics.

Test Suite description available upon request.

All participants will be fully informed of the nature of the study, provide explicit consent, and retain full control over their participation and data. 

Personally identifiable information will be handled with strict privacy safeguards and used solely for the purposes of this research. 

A sample consent form and data handling policy are available upon request.

We intend to publish aggregate findings in an open and transparent format to contribute to broader understanding and development of fair, secure biometric systems.

Thank you for considering this request. 

We believe this research aligns with Microsoft’s commitment to fairness, security, and transparency in AI, and we look forward to the possibility of working with you in advancing responsible innovation in this space.

I ask you to consider my request as BUSINESS related.

thanks

Mike