Techniques are provided for multi-modal sensitive recognition. A digital data set for an object is obtained according to a modality, where the digital data set includes digital representations of the object at different values of a dimension of relevance of the modality. A reference location associated with the object is identified. A modal descriptor is derived for the modality according to an implementation of a multi-modal recognition algorithm by deriving a set of feature descriptors for the reference location and at the different values of the corresponding dimension of relevance, calculating a set of differences between the feature descriptors in the set of feature descriptors, and aggregating the set of differences into the modal descriptor. A device is then configured to initiate an action as a function of the modal descriptor.