Iridian Technologies, the leading provider of authentication software based on its exclusive, patented iris recognition technology, today announced that its technology was the iris recognition technique used to positively identify the mysterious "Afghan Girl" who graced the cover of National Geographic magazine in 1985. The process of finding her and verifying her identity is detailed in a television documentary on the National Geographic Channel, with international airdates beginning March 18, 2002.
Iridian was asked by National Geographic to compare photographs taken in 1984 with photographs from 2002. Iridian's commercially available iris recognition cameras and software contain advanced security measures to detect and reject photographs. Therefore, Iridian's Research Lab scanned the photographic images into digital format and used development software to process the digital image, disabling the security measures normally used to detect photographs. Because the photographs were not taken with iris recognition cameras, the Research Lab had further to discount for light reflection and adjust for the quality of the image.
"It all got down to the eyes. That's what made the image so popular in the first place and that's where we had to look for answers. We had more than one person claiming to be THE 'Afghan Girl' so we had to be positive. It wasn't just the success or failure of the search that was at stake but potentially the reputation of National Geographic," said Brian Armstrong, producer for National Geographic television. " We needed an accurate, independent and conservative assessment and turned to Iridian. The experts at Iridian spent several days reconfiguring their software to suit our specific needs and when Iridian finally said the eyes matched we knew our search was over."
Iris recognition is well documented by third parties as the most accurate of all biometrics. For example, "Biometric Product Testing Final Report," National Physical Laboratory, UK, March 19, 2001, shows iris recognition technology decisively outperformed other biometrics on accuracy and throughput (or processing) speed of the matching algorithms. The study further states that there were "no false matches" in the course of the testing.
Despite the challenges of working with photographs, rather than live subjects, the strength of Iridian's core algorithms allowed for a conclusive determination that Sharbat Gula was indeed the same person as the individual who was photographed in 1984.
"The match of Sharbat Gula's eyes to the eyes on the 1985 cover photo was irrefutable, as we achieved a 1 in 100 million probability of a false match. There is no doubt in my mind that National Geographic has found the girl in the cover photo," said Ulf Cahn von Seelen, director of algorithms for Iridian Technologies.
The market for iris recognition is growing rapidly. Iridian is currently engaged in numerous pilot programs worldwide for immigration and border control, controlling access to restricted areas, and simplifying passenger travel. Iridian has numerous deployments across vertical industries ranging from corrections, to transportation and border crossing, to government, utilities and healthcare. Customers include the Sarasota, Florida Department of Corrections, Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, London's Heathrow Airport, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and Ameren Union Electric nuclear power.
Iris recognition technology identifies people by the unique patterns of the iris -- the colored ring around the pupil of the eye. Iris recognition is the most accurate, single-factor identification method in the world, and can be used for physical access security, information security and a variety of walk-up applications.
Using Iridian's patented Private ID software and KnoWho Authentication Server, iris recognition devices like the Authenticam camera capture images of the eye from an arm's distance away using standard video technology without bright lights or lasers. The combination of accuracy and ease of use gives iris recognition significant and measurable advantages over other biometrics.