Azure Face API

Important

Face service access is limited based on eligibility and usage criteria in order to support our Responsible AI principles. Face service is only available to Microsoft managed customers and partners. Use the Face Recognition intake form to apply for access. For more information, see the Face limited access page.

Important

Microsoft will be retiring facial recognition capabilities that can be used to try to infer emotional states and identity attributes which, if misused, can subject people to stereotyping, discrimination or unfair denial of services. These include capabilities that predict emotion, gender, age, smile, facial hair, hair and makeup. Existing customers have until June 30, 2023 to discontinue use of these capabilities before they are retired. Read more about this decision here.

The Azure Face service provides AI algorithms that detect, recognize, and analyze human faces in images.

Install the library

Install with Visual Studio

Using Visual Studio, create a new .NET Core application.

Once you've created a new project, install the client library by right-clicking on the project solution in the Solution Explorer and selecting Manage NuGet Packages. In the package manager that opens select Browse, check Include prerelease, and search for Microsoft.Azure.CognitiveServices.Vision.Face. Select version 2.7.0-preview.1, and then Install.

Install with the command-line interface

In a console window (such as cmd, PowerShell, or Bash), use the dotnet new command to create a new console app with the name face-quickstart. This command creates a simple "Hello World" C# project with a single source file: program.cs.

dotnet new console -n face-quickstart

Change your directory to the newly created app folder. You can build the application with:

dotnet build

The build output should contain no warnings or errors.

...
Build succeeded.
 0 Warning(s)
 0 Error(s)
...

Within the application directory, install the Face client library for .NET with the following command:

dotnet add package Microsoft.Azure.CognitiveServices.Vision.Face --version 2.7.0-preview.1

Next Steps

Go to the Face service Overview or follow a quickstart to get started.