Contributions to practical iris biometrics on smartphones

Abstract

This thesis investigates the practical adaption of iris biometrics on smartphones. Iris recognition is a mature and widely deployed technology which will be able to provide the high security demanded by next generation smartphones. Practical challenges in widely adopting this technology on smartphones are identified. Based on this, a number of design strategies are presented for constraint free, high performing iris biometrics on smartphones. A prototype, smartphone form factor device is presented to be used as a front-facing camera. Analysis of its optical properties and iris imaging capabilities shows that such a device with improved optics and sensors could be used for implementing iris recognition in the next generation of smartphones. A novel iris liveness detection is presented to prevent spoofing attacks on such a system. Also, the social impact of wider adoption of this technology is discussed. Iris pattern obfuscation is presented to address various security and privacy concerns which may arise when iris recognition will be a part of our daily life