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• recommend categories of individuals, in addition to known and suspected terrorists, who may pose a threat to national security, and recommend cost-effective actions and associated timelines for expanding the col-lection and use of biometrics to identify and screen for such individuals; and

• identify business processes, technological capabilities, legal authorities, and research and development efforts needed to implement this directive.

Within one year of the date of the directive a report must be submitted on the implementa-tion of this directive and the associated action plan, proposing any necessary additional steps for carrying out the policy of this directive.

iris

Neurotechnology adds iris to its portfolio

Lithuanian firm Neurotechnology (previously known as

Neurotechnologija) has added iris recognition technology to its suite of biometric identification and software development products.

The company claims a matching speed of 50 000 iris templates per second and says it has achieved the best known results for accuracy and reliability when tested against certain publicly available datasets.

Notably, the advanced iris recognition algo-rithm in VeriEye claims to detect and compensate for partial obstructions (such as eyelids or eye-lashes), irregularities and deformations in the iris shape and can achieve a high degree of accuracy even when the eyes are gazing away.

This flexibility provides a high degree of accu-racy, the company says, making it suitable for use in a range of applications for security, access con-trol, time and attendance and other systems that require fast and reliable identification.

The company said: “No two irises are exactly alike, and although they may appear to be round, no iris is perfectly circular. Unlike some iris identi-fication systems that approximate the iris shape as a circle, Neurotechnology’s new iris segmentation algorithm can detect the boundaries of irises that are not perfectly circular, are partly occluded by eyelids or eyelashes or deformed in shape because the eye is looking away from the image capture device. This enables VeriEye to more precisely extract all visible iris texture and significantly

enhance iris recognition accuracy and reliability. Iris texture is modeled through unique features that remain true even with varying contrast and illumination levels. VeriEye takes less than a half-second to create a record of unique iris features from an unsegmented human eye image.”

The iris matching algorithm in VeriEye is reportedly capable of detecting and compensating for obstructions on iris texture and in deformed “looking away” iris images. Matching speeds against existing iris records can range from 50 000 to 150 000 irises per second, depending on configuration, the supplier says.

The company has tested its algorithm against the publicly available dataset ICE2005 Exp 1 (NIST ICE-1), and claims to have achieved the following results at a matching speed of 50 000 iris templates per second:

• 0.11% False Rejection Rate (FRR) at a False Acceptance Rate (FAR) of 0.1%;

• 0.16% FRR at FAR=0.01%; and • 0.33% FRR at FAR=0%.

market statistics

Global market report predicts $7.1b by 2012

New research has predicted that the global market for biometrics

is expected to rise to US$7.1 billion by 2012, showing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.3%.

It is forecast that fingerprint biometrics will continue to be the main revenue contributor from 2007 to 2012. Authors of the report by BCC Research say that this segment was worth $1.3 billion in 2007, and is forecast to grow to $2.7 billion by 2012, a CAGR of 16.3% over the next five years. They say the main reason for this growth is the decrease in the price of fingerprint sensors, making them more affordable, and government ini-tiatives that rely heavily on fingerprint biometrics.

The study found that the second largest seg-ment is face recognition. Analysts predict that this market segment will grow from $459 million in 2007 to $1.3 billion by 2012, a CAGR of 23.8%.

The next segment is hand biometrics with a market revenue of $243 million in 2007 rising to $752.6 million by 2012.

The Global Biometrics Market report predicts that remaining biometric segments, including iris scan, middleware, multimodality, voice recogni-tion, signature verification and other emerging segments will together constitute $729 million in 2007, rising to $2.3 billion by 2012.

The report says that in terms of region, Europe currently leads the biometrics market due to higher user acceptance and the introduction of biometric passports in the majority of European countries. However, the highest potential lies in the Asian region where technologically-developed countries such as South Korea and Japan and growing countries such as China and India will drive growth.

Biometric Technology Today June 2008

At a time when the world is experiencing serious economic jitters, fuelled by high oil prices, the credit crunch and rising food bills, it is soothing to see

major biometrics projects move forward, massive amounts of money being earmarked for security, and pundits predicting strong growth for the biometrics sector.

One major project moving forward is the UK’s national ID card scheme. The final supplier group (five companies) has now been chosen and the ID card scheme is set to roll into action as early as the end of this year for foreign nation-als. This stage in the proceedings had seemed a long way off, given the strength of opposition to the scheme. However, many hurdles have now been jumped and it becomes clear that the contracts on offer will take in far more than the national ID card scheme. This is clever, because it substantially allays the fears of suppliers that

the projects will, at some future date, be binned in their entirety. It effectively removes a potential major sting in the tail and portrays the image that much of the ID card infrastructure needs to be in place for other projects to be fulfilled. As bizarre as it may sound, could we, at some point in the future, end up with a national ID card system, with no actual ID card, but a compre-hensive National Identity Register?

In other parts of the world, the USA continues to pump extraordinary amounts of money into security, with almost US$40 billion earmarked for the Department of Homeland Security – although, as this month’s news highlights, DHS is having to battle to get its biometric exit strategy at the border in place.

Finally to the market pundits. I would love to know how they get all their figures, but the outlook certainly seems rosier than one might expect. In a world of negativity, I am certainly not going to argue – not today at least…

Mark Lockie

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