Face recognition remains one of the most significant challenges within the field of biometrics. In spite of advances in machine learning, algorithms that can generalize to new settings and tolerate the myriad configurations that the human face can take when acquired by a sensor are elusive. The IJCB 2017 Face Recognition Challenge is designed to evaluate state-of-the-art face recognition systems with respect to cross-dataset generalization, open set face detection, and open set face recognition - all of which remain unsolved problems.