IriKey – Iris-based Secure ID Management for Blockchain Applications

FAIRFAX, VA, November 27, 2019 –Online transactions have become a dominant force in the modern era with mobile phones easing access to consumers. With increasing sophistication, cybercrime and hacking has been on the increase. With the current ease of use of online transactions, the issue of access to this personal and financial information has become a very complex issue.

In recent years cyber threat has quickly become a major issue according to John Demers, assistant attorney general for national security at the Justice Department. In 2014, Mt Gox, with $460 million worth of Bitcoin currency, was hacked resulting in bankruptcy for the exchange. Banks, online casinos, and cryptocurrency exchanges have similar levels of encryption to protect data, but as we’ve seen in current years, hacking banks and exchanges can be done. All these industries have billions of dollars flowing through them and to keep these funds safe, IriTech has a simple, yet effective solution. Iritech’s iris locked code technology, provides biometric authentication that greatly assists with security and user experience.

Online gambling and gaming is a prominent emerging market with potential valuations of almost USD $80 billion. Casinos have top notch security to deter hackers with Secure Sockets Layer Encryption (SSL) storing personal information. These online sites use 128 or 256-bit encryption to send personal and financial data to the companies (same level of security as banks). When users do not use secure websites for online gambling, they are left open to having personal and financial information stolen. Hackers can gain access to a player’s funds by phishing and email scams. Thus, storing the private keys anywhere can be accessible to hackers. IriTech’s iris locked code along with IriKey (hardware wallet), makes it virtually impossible to hack into any users funds without the combination of a live iris and private key. For some players, the amounts stored in the funds may not be much, but for a more avid player with maybe millions of dollars in the account, securing the funds are much more of a concern.

IriKey has a built-in NIR iris camera and on-board iris software that is used to “mix” (or “lock”) the wallet’s secret seed with its owner’s iris data. Once the so-called “iris locked seed” is generated (i.e., the mixture is done), the original seed and iris data will be forensically deleted for security purposes. The original seed can be retrieved from the locked seed if and only if a newly captured iris image is determined to be from the same eye used in locking the seed. That way, it will only take the owner an iris scan to login to IriKey (no PIN needed) or recover their assets in case the device is lost or stolen, given that the locked seed has been backed up in advance. Fortunately, the backup locked seed can be stored anywhere most convenient to the owner (his/her email, cloud, laptop, smartphone, etc.) without worrying about those being hacked because hackers cannot retrieve the original seed without the live irises of the owner. This is contrary to existing hardware wallets where users have to write down mnemonic phrase on a piece of paper and safe-guard it. A 60-second explainer video can be found here. With IriKey, your Iris is the Key to your funds.

IriTech’s partnerships dips into general ID management with government entities. Money transfers in and out of the country can be secure with smart contracts utilizing IriTech’s iris identification technology. Remittances from overseas Philippines nationals is about $30 billion per year according to recent sources. With this volume of transactions alone, secure transactions with iris locked technology can be found with a very low cost. Issuance of ID cards, implementation of secure voting systems, and money transfer systems are but some of the applications of IriTech technology. Not only will this technology change financial transactions, but also function with access control, medical history, social connections, and other types of security. IriTech is currently working with the Indian and Philippine governments on several projects revolving around national identification with 1+ billion persons.

About IriTech, Inc.

Since its establishment in 2000, IriTech, Inc. has focused on developing the most advanced iris recognition technology and products. Its iris-matching algorithm was top ranked by NIST’s IREX test and widely used by several U.S. government agencies. IriTech is the only vendor achieving all three STQC certifications on iris cameras for enrollment, authentication, and mobile devices for the Indian government’s UIDAI project — an ambitious plan to issue biometric ID cards to 1.2 billion residents. Those cameras have also been used by UNHCR, UN WFP, US Army, and many other customers globally. For more information, please visit www.iritech.com