1. A computer-implemented method for detecting user liveness comprising: illuminating, by an illumination device included in a computing device, the face of a user, the illumination being randomly varied over time in accordance with instructions randomly selected from an instruction listing, the instructions for each user liveness detection being different; capturing, by the computing device, face biometric data of the user as a sequence of images; transmitting, by the computing device, the sequence of images to an authentication computer system over a network; recognizing, by the authentication computer system, illumination characteristics in at least one of the images caused by the illumination; and determining, by the authentication computer system, the user is live when the illumination characteristics recognized in each image included in the at least one image match the illumination applied respectively to each image included in the at least one image.