# StyleID: Identity Disentanglement for Anonymizing Faces

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.13791 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.13791/

## Key facts

- Cited by 10 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 23 of its 41 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 28 Dec 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 23 of 23)

- [A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.04948/) (2018)
- [MobileNets: Efficient Convolutional Neural Networks for Mobile Vision Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.04861/) (2017)
- [Deep Learning Face Attributes in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1411.7766/) (2014)
- [Analyzing and Improving the Image Quality of StyleGAN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.04958/) (2019)
- [FaceNet: A Unified Embedding for Face Recognition and Clustering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.03832/) (2015)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis and Semantic Manipulation with Conditional GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.11585/) (2017)
- [StyleCLIP: Text-Driven Manipulation of StyleGAN Imagery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.17249/) (2021)
- [Encoding in Style: a StyleGAN Encoder for Image-to-Image Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.00951/) (2020)
- [MaskGAN: Towards Diverse and Interactive Facial Image Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.11922/) (2019)
- [GANSpace: Discovering Interpretable GAN Controls](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.02546/) (2020)
- [InterFaceGAN: Interpreting the Disentangled Face Representation Learned by GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.09635/) (2020)
- [Image2StyleGAN++: How to Edit the Embedded Images?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.11544/) (2019)
- [StyleSpace Analysis: Disentangled Controls for StyleGAN Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.12799/) (2020)
- [CurricularFace: Adaptive Curriculum Learning Loss for Deep Face Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.00288/) (2020)
- [FSGAN: Subject Agnostic Face Swapping and Reenactment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.05932/) (2019)
- [Unsupervised Discovery of Interpretable Directions in the GAN Latent Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.03754/) (2020)
- [DeepPrivacy: A Generative Adversarial Network for Face Anonymization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.04538/) (2019)
- [CIAGAN: Conditional Identity Anonymization Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.09544/) (2020)
- [StyleGAN2 Distillation for Feed-forward Image Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.03581/) (2020)
- [HYPE: A Benchmark for Human eYe Perceptual Evaluation of Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.01121/) (2019)
- [AnonymousNet: Natural Face De-Identification with Measurable Privacy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.12620/) (2019)
- [Live Face De-Identification in Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.08348/) (2019)
- [k-Same-Siamese-GAN: k-Same Algorithm with Generative Adversarial Network for Facial Image De-identification with Hyperparameter Tuning and Mixed Precision Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.00816/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 10 of 10)

- [Edge-Cloud Collaborative Computing on Distributed Intelligence and Model Optimization: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.01821/) (2025)
- [GANonymization: A GAN-based Face Anonymization Framework for Preserving Emotional Expressions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.02143/) (2023)
- [Zero-shot racially balanced dataset generation using an existing biased StyleGAN2](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.07710/) (2023)
- [Now You See Me, Now You Don't: A Unified Framework for Expression Consistent Anonymization in Talking Head Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.11635/) (2026)
- [3D-LENS: A 3D Lifting-based Elevated Novel-view Synthesis method for Single-View Aerial-Ground Re-Identification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.26520/) (2026)
- [iFADIT: Invertible Face Anonymization via Disentangled Identity Transform](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.04390/) (2025)
- [VerA: Versatile Anonymization Applicable to Clinical Facial Photographs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02124/) (2023)
- [Less is More: Masking Elements in Image Condition Features Avoids Content Leakages in Style Transfer Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.07466/) (2025)
- [Training Free Stylized Abstraction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.22663/) (2025)
- [DUDE: Diffusion-Based Unsupervised Cross-Domain Image Retrieval](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.04193/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Privacy of machine learning models is one of the remaining challenges that hinder the broad adoption of Artificial Intelligent (AI). This paper considers this problem in the context of image datasets containing faces. Anonymization of such datasets is becoming increasingly important due to their central role in the training of autonomous cars, for example, and the vast amount of data generated by surveillance systems. While most prior work de-identifies facial images by modifying identity features in pixel space, we instead project the image onto the latent space of a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) model, find the features that provide the biggest identity disentanglement, and then manipulate these features in latent space, pixel space, or both. The main contribution of the paper is the design of a feature-preserving anonymization framework, StyleID, which protects the individuals' identity, while preserving as many characteristics of the original faces in the image dataset as possible. As part of the contribution, we present a novel disentanglement metric, three complementing disentanglement methods, and new insights into identity disentanglement. StyleID provides tunable privacy, has low computational complexity, and is shown to outperform current state-of-the-art solutions.