EyeVerify Plans To Eliminate ID Theft With Easy-To-Use Biometrics

Passwords are universally accepted as personal verification, and grant a user access to sensitive information. But does a string of letters and numbers really verify an identity? As anyone who’s been hacked knows, passwords are fallible. Biometric verification is nearly infallible, but retina- and iris-scanning identification systems require installing special equipment, and aren’t yet realistic in most everyday applications. EyeVerify hopes to bring biometrics to the masses.

EyeVerify’s software identifies users by their “eye prints,” or the patterns of veins in the white of their eyes. Every person has four eye prints, one on each side of the iris of both eyes. According to EyeVerify, the method is as accurate as a fingerprint or iris scan, without the need for special equipment.

Each section of the white of your eye is the equivalent of a fingerprint,” Toby Rush, EyeVerify CEO and founder, told Pitch. “It’s like four fingerprints staring at you.

The Kansas City, Kan. Company says EyeVerify works in smartphones using the rear-facing camera. The user simply faces the camera and looks to the right and left, allowing EyeVerify to capture eye prints from both eyes. The software processes images of the eye prints by mapping the veins in the eyes. To unlock the phone the in future, the software matches the eyes with the eye print stored on the phone. Rush hopes to utilize the application with front-facing cameras in the future, but they currently do not offer high-enough resolution to support the program.

All you have to do is hold it roughly in front of your eye, look right, look left, turn it around and it’ll be done,” Rush told Pitch. “It’s that simple.

Rush hopes many industries will begin to use the EyeVerify biometrics for future transactions such as money transfers, prescription records and building access.

It is quintessentially who you are,” Rush told Pitch, talking up the benefits of biometrics software over the usual typed passwords. “Everything else is a proxy. Because you have a password, we assume you are who you are. Because you know this string of numbers, we’re going to assume that you are who you say you are. None of them actually answer the question. But we are definitely answering the question. … We’ve got to make it dead simple and accurate every time. That’s really the focus.

EyeVerify piloted its program this fall, but hopes to fully launch next spring. Although Rush won’t name the companies current testing the program, he told Pitch they are “the biggest names in town in banking and health care.”

“We’re going to protect your ID,” Rush said. “We’re going to make it convenient to share your identity with your phone and then the various applications.”