Communications of the ACM
New Notre Dame Research Raises Questions About Iris Recognition Systems
Ken Bowyer
Credit: Notre Dame University
Since iris recognition technologies were first developed, it has been assumed that a person's iris remained stable over their lifetime, which is known as “one enrollment for life.” However, Notre Dame University researchers have found that the iris is subject to an aging process that causes recognition performance to degrade over time.
"Our experimental results show that, in fact, the false non-match rate increases over time, which means that the single enrollment for life idea is wrong," says Notre Dame's Kevin Bowyer.
The false non-match rate is how often a system finds that two images are not a match even when they are from the same person. The researchers say they analyzed a large data set with more images acquired over a longer period of time than ever before. Bowyer notes the results of the study should not be viewed as a negative for iris recognition technologies and security systems going forward.
"Once you have admitted that there is a template effect and have set up your system to handle it appropriately in some way, it is no longer a big deal," he says.
The iris template aging effect will only be a problem for those who refuse to believe it exists, Bowyer adds.
From Notre Dame News
View Full Article
Abstracts Copyright © 2012 Information Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA
No entries found
Comment on this article
Signed and anonymous comments submitted to this site are moderated and will appear if they are relevant to the topic and not abusive. Your comment will appear with your username if you are signed into the site, and will be anonymous if you are not signed in. View our policy on commentsLog in to Submit a Signed Comment
Sign In »
Sign In
To submit a signed comment, sign in using your ACM Web Account username and password if you are an ACM member, Communications subscriber or Digital Library subscriber.Create a Web Account »
An email verification has been sent to youremail@email.com
ACM veriŞes that you are the owner of the email address you've provided by sending you a veriŞcation message. The email message will contain a link that you must click to validate this account.NEXT STEP: CHECK YOUR EMAIL
You must click the link within the message in order to complete the process of creating your account. You may click on the link embedded in the message, or copy the link and paste it into your browser.Continue as an anonymous user »