This chapter examines the line of biometric research that aims to prevent ‘spoofing’, that is, attempts by individuals to circumvent biometric systems through the presentation of artefacts such as ‘fake fingers’, ‘fake irides’ or facial masks. Through these fake body parts, spoofers attempt to hide their ‘true identity’ by pretending to be someone else, whether a particular individual (known as impostering)
or an unknown other (known as obfuscation) (Bhattacharjee et al, 2018). The chapter takes the reader into a laboratory of biometric
research and focuses on the work with ‘anti- spoofing’, or, in formal biometric vocabulary, ‘presentation attack detection’,4 which focuses
on continuously coming up with new ways to circumvent biometric sensors and thus beat spoofers at their own game.