AugGen: Synthetic Augmentation using Diffusion Models Can Improve Recognition

Parsa Rahimi, Damien Teney, Sébastien Marcel

Keywords: Generative Models, Synthetic Data, Diffusion Models, Synthetic Augmentation, Face Recognition

TL;DR: We introduce a self-contained augmentation method that uses targeted diffusion sampling to synthesize data that boosts downstream recognition, without any external data or pretrained generators.

Abstract: The increasing reliance on large-scale datasets in machine learning poses significant privacy and ethical challenges, particularly in sensitive domains such as face recognition. Synthetic data generation offers a promising alternative; however, most existing methods depend heavily on external datasets or pre-trained models, increasing complexity and resource demands. In this paper, we introduce **AugGen**, a self-contained synthetic augmentation technique. AugGen strategically samples from a class-conditional generative model trained exclusively on the target FR dataset, eliminating the need for external resources. Evaluated across 8 FR benchmarks, including IJB-C and IJB-B, our method achieves **1–12% performance improvements**, outperforming models trained solely on real data and surpassing state-of-the-art synthetic data generation approaches, while using less real data. Notably, these gains often exceed those from architectural modifications, underscoring the value of synthetic augmentation in data-limited scenarios. Our findings demonstrate that carefully integrated synthetic data can both mitigate privacy constraints and substantially enhance discriminative performance in face recognition. Code and datasets will be made publicly available upon publication.

Primary Area: Applications (e.g., vision, language, speech and audio, Creative AI)

Submission Number: 12335