About Iris recognition
Iris recognition involves first extracting the iris from a digital eye image, and then encoding the unique patterns of the iris in such a way that they can be compared with pre-registered iris patterns. Since each individual iris has enormous pattern variability, large databases can be searched without fear of a false match.
The iris is an externally visible, yet protected organ whose unique epigenetic pattern remains stable throughout adult life. These characteristics make it very attractive for use as a biometric for identifying individuals. Image processing techniques can be employed to extract the unique iris pattern from a digitized image of the eye, and encode it into a biometric template, which can be stored in a database. This biometric template contains an objective mathematical representation of the unique information stored in the iris, and allows comparisons to be made between templates. When a subject wishes to be identified by iris recognition system, their eye is first photographed, and then a template created for their iris region. This template is then compared with the other templates stored in a database until either a matching template is found and the subject is identified, or no match is found and the subject remains unidentified. The development of the actual iris scanning technology is credited to Dr. John Daugman. Dr. John Daugman is the man responsible for the creation of the mathematical (algorithms) formulas used to measure the varying characteristics of one’s iris. Compared with other biometric technologies, such as face, speech and finger recognition, iris recognition can easily be considered as the most reliable form of biometric technology.
