Iris scans spot thousands of fake passports
Tens of thousands of immigrants have been stopped from re-entering the UAE with false travel documents after an iris recognition system was introduced at the countrys borders.
Tens of thousands of immigrants have been stopped from re-entering the UAE with false travel documents after an iris recognition system was introduced at the countrys borders.
Nearly 26,000 people were caught trying to re-enter the UAE with false passports and visas as part of a joint study by the University of Cambridge and the Abu Dhabi General Directorate of Police into the effectiveness of iris cross-comparisons.
In 2001, the Abu Dhabi Police launched a national border-crossing security programme that is now deployed at all 27 of the UAEs air, land and sea ports.
It is based upon mathematical analysis of the random patterns visible in the iris of a persons eye. The system used algorithms developed by Dr John Daugman, from the University of Cambridge, and a networked server and communications architecture called IrisFarm, developed by IrisGurad Inc, for reliable and rapid matching and enrolment.
Since deployment, nearly two trillion iris comparisons have been performed, as foreign nationals have their irises compared against all the Iris Codes (mathematical descript-ions of registered iris patterns) stored in a central database.
A total of 152 different nationalities are represented on the database which is now the largest iris database in the world.
The Abu Dhabi Directorate of Police report that there have been no false matches.
Statistical analysis of the 200 billion cross-comparisons allow conclusions to be drawn about the numerical decision policies that should be implemented in large-scale identity searches using these algorithms, both to ensure the absence of false matches and to calculate confidence levels.
The findings were presented at this years Biometric 2005 conference in London this month.