Techniques for identifying skin color in images having uncontrolled lighting conditions

A system, comprising:

• a skin color estimation unit including computational circuitry configured to:
• receive at least one training image that includes a face of a training subject;
• receive tagging information for the at least one training image;
• add the at least one training image and the tagging information to a training data store;
• and
• train at least one machine learning model to determine skin colors of faces using the training data set;
• wherein training the at least one machine learning model to determine skin colors of faces using the training data set includes:
• training a first machine learning model that processes a training image as input to produce an indication of an illuminant color as an output;
• and
• training a second machine learning model that processes the training image and the indication of the illuminant color as input to produce an indication of skin color as an output.

A method of using one or more machine learning models to estimate a skin color of a face, the method comprising:

• receiving, by a computing device, a video;
• extracting, by the computing device, a plurality of images from the video that include a face of a live subject;
• processing, by the computing device, the plurality of images using at least one machine learning model to obtain a plurality of determinations of a skin color of the face;
• combining, by the computing device, the plurality of determinations of the skin color of the face to determine a combined determination of the skin color of the face;
• and
• presenting, by the computing device, the combined determination of the skin color of the face.