Plastic surgery has been an unexplored area in the face recognition
domain and it poses ethical, social and engineering challenges. Being
related to the medical history of an individual which is secure
under law, invasion of privacy is an important constraint in this
research. In some cases, facial plastic surgery is performed due to
medical reasons and sometimes it is the individual’s choice (i.e.
cosmetic/aesthetic surgery). In both cases, even though individuals
undergoing facial plastic surgery cannot be bound under any legal
and social obligations, it is ethical responsibility of the person to
get the face image/template updated in the database (i.e. template
update).
With the advancement in plastic surgery technology, identity theft
is another problem. Identity theft can be intentional when a person
consciously attempts to resemble someone by undergoing facial plastic
surgery procedures or unintentional where he/she may resemble
someone else after the surgery. Therefore, face recognition algorithms
must be able to distinguish between a genuine and stolen identity, for
which the system must include other cross references apart from a
recognition algorithm.