Yes, iris-based systems are reliable and there will be no false positives if they are deployed properly. There are two parts to any iris-based system: iris acquisition and iris matching. The HBOX technology has focused extensively on the iris acquisition, and in particular getting the same or better quality images as other devices, except that they are much easier to use, have higher throughput, are more reliable (for example, no moving parts are involved in the acquisition process), and more cost effective.

After acquiring the images, the identification is performed by the iris matching module. One of the advantages of our product is that we e provide our proprietary iris matching module bundled in with our products, with other vendors the customer must license a matcher from 3rd parties. The business models around those 3rd party licenses are very draconian - $1 per enrollee for example, and that becomes both very costly, but also unmanageable. From the technical perspective, there has been meaningful precedents in performing iris matching over very large databases (e.g. in India for welfare management and in the UAE for border control), which has demonstrated the no-false-positive result.

We have systems deployed around the world in both the government and private sectors. For example, one of the key multinational clients in the financial sector has been closely working with us for more than two years. This close interaction has provided us with exposure to all segments of the business including its customer-facing side. In fact this client invested heavily in performing focus groups on our technology across the country, and to their surprise the acceptance figures by customers when presented with the convenience, ease of use and security were in the range of 90 per cent. Based on those results, the client who has deployed access control with our products will move into that space with us.

Are results of the trials available for review?
We did trials several several years back and test results can be provided upon request.As of today we are now in full deployment. Bundled with the deployed software there is a monitoring tool to keep track of usage. Review of this data may be allowed upon request.

When the data resides within a country, then standard data protection rules within that country apply. In addition, we use a proprietary technology that we call disposable iris templates. This technology is implemented over the normal AES 256 encryption we use, providing additional safeguards to the to the data that is being stored in the database or the data that is transmitted in transactions.

For biometric data that is interchanged between countries, then there are rules with respect to what data can be passed. Those rules can be adhered to as normal, but we also provide a proprietary technology that we call identification in anonymity. In this case a unique identifier is generated to resolve the issue of whether (in a specific case) the person is granted or not access, without having to specifically know the person’s name, which simplifies greatly the data protection procedures that have to be followed.

The HBOX is designed to overlay on top of existing systems. For example, for access control, Wiegand and F/2F are standard protocols used in card readers and access control in general. The HBOX technology has such Wiegand and F/2F outputs, so that to the rest of the access control system the HBOX looks just like a glorified card reader, except the HBOX is reading the person’s iris and not a card. Then the rest of the access control system takes over with regard to opening the doors etc. There is also a relay output that allows the HBOX the control of control doors and actuators directly.

For the interface with more modern systems, the HBOX includes an Ethernet output. This provides the capability to generate more sophisticated outputs over the network.

We can certainly look at customizing the colors and material used in manufacture in a volume order. For example, one of our key multinational clients in the financial sector chose a dark gray color for the EyeSwipe-Mini and EyeSwipe.

GRI’s recently released HBOX® SDK Net programming interface library can be implemented by many different programming languages (VB.Net, C#, C++/CLI, Java, C++).

Standard 3rd party network security protocols can be used on top of TCP/IP, and in addition, GRI is developing its own security protocols.

The HBOXSDKNet is now available to customers who wish to integrate the HBOX® into their own solution. The HBOXSDKNet exposes a set of programming interfaces to allow communication between a client applications and the HBOX® device for iris and facial image acquisition.

Wireless can be added via the USB or TCP/IP network connector.

As described in the answer to Q02, the data acquisition and iris match components are entirely separate. An iris image is the interface between the two modules. This iris image can be stored along with any iris scan representation produced by the iris match component.

The statistical false positive rate is the same as the false positive rate for the matcher being used in HBOX®. In more detail, HBOX® has 2 separate components: data acquisition and iris matching. These components have been logically separated so that any iris match algorithm can be used by the customer.  Much work has been performed on iris matching, and performance rates for various matchers are well understood and published (for example, the ICE challenge). GRI has also developed its own matcher that addresses many issues related to unobtrusive matching.

Unlike other iris systems that only acquire imagery at one time instant (which may be a time instant when the iris is completely visible or obscured as described above), HBOX^® technology acquires imagery at many time instants with the objective of acquiring successively better quality imagery over time.