What is an iris scanner?

Fingerprint scanners are the most common, and universally recognised methods of ensuring security for the data on your smartphone. However, it isn’t the only kind of biometric recognition tech phones have used over the years. An alternative is iris scanners. Here’s everything you need to know about them.

How does an iris scanner work?

Iris scanners on a smartphone use infrared light to capture the shape of and patterns on your iris, which is the coloured ring around your pupil.

These patterns are then stored in a digitised form on your device’s memory. Every time you unlock your phone thereafter, the scanner analyses your iris and compares it with this the digitised version stored on the device, to authenticate you.

What makes iris scanners more secure than other forms of biometric authentication?

Firstly, iris patterns, much like your fingerprints, are stable and remain pretty much the same throughout your life. However, unlike the latter, they are nearly impossible to forge. This makes them an ideal mechanism to protect any sensitive information you may have on your device, and ensures your data remains safe even in case your device is stolen.

Secondly, since there is no physical touch involved, iris scanners also allow you to make easy work of unlocking your device when your hands may be oily or dirty, which fingerprint scanners do not.

Last and most importantly, they allow you to unlock your device in low light conditions with only so much as a glance, unlike non-IR based facial recognition, which require bright lighting to work.

ALSO READ: What is an in-display fingerprint scanner?

Though iris scanners, first introduced with the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and S8 series of smartphones, were phased out from the Galaxy S10 onwards, in favour of fingerprint recognition systems. While you may not see many phones use iris scanners today for biometric authentication, IR-based facial recognition (like Face ID on iPhones) and ultrasonic fingerprint sensors, both offer the same kind of security.

For devices like the Apple iPhones, Face ID is also expected to soon become the default biometric authentication implementation, following rumours of the next iPhone SE also getting Face ID instead of Touch ID.