Iridian Announces Iris Recognition Deployment in the Middle East

MOORESTOWN, N.J. -- Iridian Technologies today announced that its Proof Positive(TM) iris recognition technology will be deployed on a country-wide basis in an unnamed country in the Middle East. The deployment will initially include passports, visas, and watch lists for border protection and law enforcement. Potential future applications include drivers' licenses and health care. At least one million people will be enrolled in the initial phase. The deployment will include over one hundred two-eye stationary iris cameras; other interoperable cameras are expected to be utilized in the future including the latest portable cameras from IrisGuard and Iridian.

"We are very pleased to see another country recognizing the potential of iris recognition to protect their national security" said Frank Fitzsimmons, President and CEO of Iridian. "Iris recognition is uniquely suited to large-scale applications such as this, delivering superb accuracy at a very competitive cost."

This project represents the second country-wide deployment of iris recognition in the Middle East. In 2004, the United Arab Emirates deployed an iris-based expellee watch list in all their land, sea and air ports. With that system, they have apprehended over 29,000 people with fraudulent travel documents trying to re-enter the country under different identities.

Iridian has experienced accelerating adoption of its technology over the past two years with installations in the Canadian CANPASS program, the US/Canada NEXUS Air program, the U.S. Registered Traveler program, a United Nations refugee repatriation program and immigration programs in the Netherlands, the UK, Germany and Japan.

The Proof Positive hardware and software certification program from Iridian Technologies confirms that iris recognition cameras and software solutions meet critical standards for performance, interoperability, safety, security, scalability, usability and reliability. Certification includes a series of formal audits and evaluations, including conformance to Iridian's PrivateID and KnoWho application programming interfaces (APIs), data formats, encryption, and countermeasures. Proof Positive certified cameras are interoperable with other certified cameras, not only from the same vendor, but from other vendors as well. Certified cameras easily interface with Iridian's KnoWho server software for maximum performance in searches against millions of records.