I suppose that we live in an age of increased security full of passwords, keycards, and all other manner of theft-deterrent, whether we need them or not. Iris recognition has been around for a while, and it uses a special scanner to scan the iris. Apparently, everyone’s iris is as unique as a fingerprint, this can be used as a layer of security.

Japanese company Oki has developed an iris recognition technology that uses the standard mobile phone camera technology to scan irises. A device like this could definitely prevent cell phone theft or misuse as the only person who could use it has to match its pre-programmed iris-scans. The technology is surprisingly accurate, and reports have said that only 1 in 100,000 resulted in error. Not only that, the camera knows the difference between a real eye and one caught on film.

Considering that many laptop have finger scanners for identification, it was only a matter of time before someone came out with this. Looks like it won’t be available until March 2007, but I’m not certain of the cost. Something like this might increase that little security payment that we all pay.