A company called EyeLock has spent the last seven years developing iris-scanning software that recognises users by their eyes.
Here’s an interesting statistic: the false acceptance rate of the average fingerprint sensor (how often a scanning syst is fooled by the wrong finger) is once in every 10,000 scans, while for iris scans, it’s only 1 in 2.25 trillion scans. (Plus, people have already been complaining about other probls with their iPhone scanners, too.)
EyeLock’s cutting-edge scanning hardware and software were previously only available in enterprise environments, but the company has announced that it will be launching Myris, a USB-powered iris scanner for consumers.
Here’s how it works: Five people can create accounts through each Myris ‘dongle’. Each person will use the dongle to scan their eyes and create their unique, encrypted code based on their iris.
Myris has a little mirror below the scanner to make sure each person stares at the right place, moving the scanner back and forth in front of the face. It takes less than 20 seconds for the device to scan a person’s eyes and create his/her unique iris authentication.Once you’re scanned in, you create your own profile within EyeLock software which only you can access through your eye scan where you store all your important passwords. You’d ideally reset all your passwords to long, tough-to-crack strings of characters since you would never have to morise th again.
When visiting any password-protected accounts on a site — for online banking, social media, ail, Internet VPNs, whatever — Myris can be used to get instant access. When scanning the correct eye, the light around the Myris mirror glows green and access is granted. Using a video of someone’s eye in front of the device won’t work: Myris has ‘live’ sensors and can recognise photographs or dead eyes.
Myris claims to be the first consumer-facing solution to password fatigue that is both safe, very simple to use and relatively cheap.
Although at present EyeLock is selling its technology to consumers through a dongle, its software has been certified by the Fast Identify Online Alliance (FIDO). With that approval and partnerships in the works, the company plans to start integrating its tech into mainstream devices in the future.
Myris will be available for purchase within the first half of this year, and will cost somewhere in the $US200 to $US300 range.
