WHY IRIS?

Iris recognition has many advantages over the other forms of biometric identification.

Accuracy

Simply put, iris recognition is the most accurate form of identification known to man. More accurate than even DNA matching. Due to the process of chaotic morphogenesis, every iris is unique to a degree that the probability of 2 irises being identical is 1 in 10 to the power of 78. Additionally, our iris recognition system captures over 240 'degrees of freedom' or points of interest. This is more data than is collected by most hand, face and voice recognition systems combined.

Other systems have the potential to be fooled by replicas and duplicates. Our iris cameras have built in countermeasures to ensure that it is a live eye being presented meaning that high-quality 2-D or 3-D reproductions pose no threat to iris recognition systems.

Speed

Our iris recognition system is capable of making a match from a database of over 1 million records in less than a second. Conversely, fingerprint, hand and voice systems are challenged by large databases. Not only does the time taken to register a match increase, but also the accuracy of the system falls unlike iris recognition.

Identification vs. Verification

Iris recognition identifies people rather than verifying their identity.

Verification asks; Is this person who they say they are? This is one-to-one matching which means a person must first suggest their identity through a password, card or name and the system then seeks to determine whether or not there is a match between the suggested and true identities.

Identification asks; Who is this person? This is one-to-many matching meaning that the person is not required to carry anything or volunteer any information. The system simply captures the iris image, searches the entire database and either finds their identity or reports that they are unknown. This is obviously a much more powerful form of authentication as no information is required from the user.

Stability

The iris image remains stable from the age of about 10 months up until death. This means that an iris image need only be captured once and does not need to be updated. Other biometric measures change over time. Hands and fingers grow, our voices change, our skin degrades and other biometric measures are subject to labour, health, genetics, climate and age.

What this means is that the performance of such systems is unreliable and frequent re-enrolments are required to accommodate these changes. Conversely, barring surgery or extensive trauma, the iris template does not change over time.

Non-invasive

Users wearing gloves, protective wear, glasses, safety goggles and even contact lenses can operate iris recognition systems. No contact is required with a touch pad or screen meaning that iris recognition is ideal in environments where hygiene is at a premium. It is also important to note that iris recognition is a completely separate technology to retinal scanning. No bright lights or lasers are beamed into the eye, only a digital photograph is taken. This means that not only is iris recognition the most accurate biometric technology, it is also the safest.

What about DNA?

The birth rate of identical twins is 1 in 121 births or 0.82%. As identical twins share the same DNA, the false acceptance rate for any DNA based system must be at least 0.82% due to the birth rate alone. DNA testing is an invasive technology with a cotton swab inserted into the mouth the most common method of obtaining a sample. Combine this with the negative stigma associated with DNA sampling and it becomes clear that iris recognition is the most accurate, safe, user-friendly and fastest identification system on the market.

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