Privacy protection framework for face recognition in edge-based Internet of Things

Edge computing (EC) gets the Internet of Things (IoT)-based face recognition systems out of trouble caused by limited storage and computing resources of local or mobile terminals. However, data privacy leak remains a concerning problem. Previous studies only focused on some stages of face data processing, while this study focuses on the privacy protection of face data throughout its entire life cycle. Therefore, we propose a general privacy protection framework for edge-based face recognition (EFR) systems. To protect the privacy of face images and training models transmitted between edges and the remote cloud, we design a local differential privacy (LDP) algorithm based on the proportion difference of feature information. In addition, we also introduced identity authentication and hash technology to ensure the legitimacy of the terminal device and the integrity of the face image in the data acquisition phase. Theoretical analysis proves the rationality and feasibility of the scheme. Compared with the non-privacy protection situation and the equal privacy budget allocation method, our method achieves the best balance between availability and privacy protection in the numerical experiment.