The technology is fairly straightforward. Everyone's iris is made up of a variety of colors and patterns, enough to make each iris unique to an individual (including twins). The iris doesn't change and to date, it is not susceptible to various diseases. There are an estimated 400 characteristics available in the iris to use. Iridian uses 240 of those 400 to create a file of 512 bytes encrypted with 3DES. Fingerprints, in contrast, use 40-60 characteristics.

How accurate is it?

Extremely accurate. Various large scaled tests (well over 1 million people in the UK) resulted in a FAR (False Acceptance Rate: when the biometric system accepts someone it should) of 1 in 1.2 million (compared to 1 in 100,000 for fingerprints, 1 in 10,000 for hand geometry and 1 in 100 for various facial recognition technologies). On the other side of things, the FRR (False Rejection Rate: when the biometric system rejects a user who is legitimate) for iris scans was 0.1 - 0.2% (compared to 2-3% for fingerprint, 10% for hand geometry and 10-20% for facial recognition).

These kinds of results are hard to beat.

And one can see by the organizations that are presently employing it that it does have a range of applications: Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CANPASS-Air) at various Canadian airports uses iris scanning to allow low-risk, pre-approved frequent travelers to speed through customs and immigration "express lane". At JFK Airport, an iris file is stored on a smart card and identifies the employees with access to the tarmac.

Other applications:

United Nations - Pakistan: Used for anonymous verification of individuals who receive a one-time assistance package of monetary travel and food aid)

Border Control - UAE: Used to identify individuals who have been ejected from the country and preventing re-entry)

Lancaster County Prison - Pennsylvania: Inmates, staff and visitors are enrolled into the program to control access in the high security facility.

One of the biggest advantages of this particular product is the ability of users to "buy in" to it. Because an individual stands/sits about 12-18 inches away from the camera and there is no physical contact between the individual and the biometric device, the likelihood of opt-in is greater. This is unlike facial recognition used in many airports where it is often done without the permission of individuals.

The specific camera product that I got to see for larger installations was the Panasonic BM-ET300. This camera seemed pretty unobtrusive and quite streamlined. Price is a bit high at approximately $10,000 CDN, but given that 5,000 irises can be stored locally and its intended market, this is not a bad price. If your company is larger, Iridian has a backend database product that will allow for virtually unlimited growth (works Solaris 8 or Windows 2000 along with Oracle 8i, MS SQL 7 or MS SQL 2000).

There is a smaller option meant for desktop security, namely the Panasonic BM-ET100 (you can get this at Thinkgeek.com for about $200 USD). This kind of option would be good for smaller companies or specific computer systems that require more security or restricted access (CEO, CIO, secure servers, etc.).

Truth be told, iris technology is not without its limitations. While irises aren't susceptible to disease, serious injury can cause problems. Scans are done on both eyes so either eye can identify an individual. Losing both eyes may cause problems but odds of this are quite low. Thick glasses and specialty contact lenses can cause higher FRR. Lastly, there is no support for Linux yet.

But Iridian's Canadian representative company, Rycom, has admitted to me that support for Linux for the smaller desktop camera is being worked on. Of course, I've asked them to order one for me when it's released.