Results from 200 billion iris cross-comparisons

Statistical results are presented for biometric recognition of persons by their iris patterns, based on 200 billion cross-comparisons between different eyes. The database consisted of 632,500 iris images acquired in the Middle East, in a national border-crossing protection programme that uses the Daugman algorithms for iris recognition. A total of 152 different nationalities were represented in this database. The set of exhaustive cross-comparisons between all possible pairings of irises in the database shows that with reasonable acceptance thresholds, the False Match rate is less than 1 in 200 billion. Recommendations are given for the numerical decision threshold policy that would enable reliable identification performance on a national scale in the UK.