Iris scanning to begin at German airport

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

From:         "Richard M. Smith" <rms () COMPUTERBYTESMAN COM>
Subject: Iris scanning to begin at German airport
To:           BIOMETRICS () PEACH EASE LSOFT COM

http://news.com.com/2100-7348_3-5158973.html?tag=nefd_top

Iris scanning to begin at German airport
Last modified: February 13, 2004, 11:05 AM PST
By Dinesh C. Sharma
Special to CNET News.com

A test of an iris-scanning system is set to begin Saturday at the Frankfurt,
Germany, airport, as part of a project involving 18 European countries.

Airline passengers will be required to stand in front of an identification
device whose cameras will automatically capture images of their iris
patterns, companies participating in the trial said Friday. The iris
systems--seven of which have been installed at the airport--will then
identify the passenger's iris and match that information with the passport
data captured by a scanner. If successful, the iris system could replace
conventional systems for checking identity at airport immigration counters.

Initially, residents of European Union countries and Switzerland who fly
frequently with Lufthansa will be able to take part in the trial at the main
Frankfurt airport, after getting their iris data registered. Full-scale
service will be launched after the six-month trial, according to Byometric
Systems and Oki Electric Industry, companies implementing the project.

Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States,
airlines and high-tech companies launched a number of high-profile security
experiments. Many put into effect or looked into secondary security checks
such as card readers and biometric devices, but civil libertarians and
privacy advocates decry such experiments as invasive.

"It must be guaranteed that the registered biometric characteristic can be
matched absolutely correctly," Otto Schily, Germany's minister of the
interior, said in a statement. "Iris recognition is currently considered to
be the most secure biometric system."

Byometric and Oki said the complexity and randomness of the eye's iris
patterns make them more difficult to fake than other biometric patterns,
such as fingerprints.


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