NEC Corporation announced that its iris recognition technology ranked first in the world in the most recent iris recognition technology benchmark test, IREX 10, conducted by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
NEC said its leading recognition technology was evaluated with an accuracy rate of 99.59 percent for 1:N Identification for images including both eyes among half a million people.
NEC ranked first in the NIST iris recognition benchmark test in 2018, as well as the face recognition benchmark test results published in August 2021.
NEC plans to use this technology for iris recognition and in combination with face recognition in order to provide highly accurate multimodal biometric authentication. Multimodal biometrics provide high precision results even when face masks and caps are worn, and support the maintenance of hygienic environments with contactless identification.
NEC anticipates they will be used throughout a variety of applications, including payment at stores, access to facilities, such as data centers that require high security management, as well as food and pharmaceutical plants, clean rooms, and medical sites that demand strict hygiene control.
NEC is demonstrating the use of biometric authentication through entry and exit management for employees at NEC headquarters, as well as a payment system at a store in Tokyo.
