In Iraq, it's tough to sort out who's an ally, and who's Al Qaeda. So the Marines are giving Iraqi Army recruits the biometric once over.

According to Security Products magazine, the Marines are using the Biometric Automated Toolset System, which relies, in part, on iris recognition to provide "extremely accurate identification (false acceptance rate is 1 in 1.2 million), performing both un-tethered and tethered enrollment authentication."

This specific recognition device represents each individual iris as a small, 512-byte IrisCode and can function as a standalone device or in combination with custom network applications for identity recognition, security and tracking...

[It also] incorporates a face recognition engine... scalable up to tens of millions of faces and capable of providing real-time response. The recognition process represents faces as an extremely concise 128-byte "eigenface" template for minimal storage and enhanced search speed.

Also of interest is an article on BATS training for the 1-22 Infantry Regiment, which describes how the gizmos are used to identify prisoners and suspects on the scene of incidents such as an IED blast. The soldiers can quickly scan those in the area and cross-reference the results with suspects at other IED scenes.

As for army recruits, I suspect that their scans are also cross-checked against the prisoner and suspect databases. (This blog says so.} I hope it's right.

The scanner of choice seems to be the Portable Iris Enrollment and Recognition Device.

On a related note, iris recognition was used to identify the National Geographic 'Afghan Girl'. That's her right eye in the photo above.

-- Murdoc