Iris recognition - the ID card hidden in the eyes

ID card

Everyone must be familiar with

But do you know?

In our eyes

Hiding a special ID card

In the movie Mission Impossible

There is a magical technology

By scanning the eyes

To confirm the identity

How is this done?

Let's get to know the ID card hidden in the eyes

Iris

What is the iris?

If the eye is a window, then the iris is the curtain of this window.

In appearance, it is a donut-shaped membrane between the pupil and the white of the eye in the center of the eyeball.

The color of the iris is different for different races, because the color of the iris depends on the amount of pigment it contains. Thanks to the iris, people have colorful eyes such as yellow, blue, brown, and gray.

Look carefully at our eyes in the mirror. The pupils expand and shrink depending on the intensity of the light. The texture of the iris is clearly visible. These details, such as spots, filaments, and stripes, are determined in a random combination before birth. Once formed, they remain unchanged throughout life.

This special ID card is different for everyone, even twins. So using the iris as a password has better long-term security.

How is iris recognition technology implemented?

The first step is to collect iris images, and collect iris photos through the image acquisition system;

The second step is iris positioning, finding the iris from the collected image and marking the exact position;

The third step is iris feature extraction, which is also the most critical step. For the image with iris positioning completed, the texture feature code is extracted and the iris feature value is calculated;

The fourth step is to match the iris identity and search the database for irises with the same features to achieve the purpose of identity recognition.

This seemingly complicated process can be completed in the blink of an eye.

Compared with biometric recognition technologies such as fingerprint recognition and face recognition, iris recognition has the lowest error rate. Especially during the epidemic, people can be correctly identified even when wearing masks and hats.

Currently, the medical difficulty and surgical risk of changing iris features are very high, and the iris has subtle dynamic characteristics, which makes it impossible to forge an iris.

Application scenarios of iris recognition technology

There are many application scenarios for iris. In the field of information security, smartphones support iris unlocking. In key areas such as banks and important posts, iris is the only way to enter by scanning the eyes, which effectively improves security. In the field of public security, iris recognition fast-track channels have begun to be used, making entry and exit more convenient.

Riding, shopping, working, traveling, scenarios based on iris verification will become more and more common. Iris recognition will gradually replace passwords and keys and become a secret weapon to protect information security.

END

Author of this article/Wu Wei

Editor/Gulu