Effects of latanoprost in iris bioidentification.

Bioidentification is becoming increasingly important in everyday life. One of the most widespread methods of bioidentification is based on the structure of the iris. Iris photography has several advantages as an identification method: it is relatively simple and effective; it is non-invasive, and it is comparatively inexpensive. However, some medical conditions may change the appearance of the iris. This paper discusses the effects of latanoprost-induced pigmentation changes in iris bioidentification.The study is based on four extreme cases of latanoprost-induced pigmentation changes. Iris photographs in these patients during treatment are compared with pretreatment photographs. The comparison is carried out with iris recognition software developed by our research group based on the principles of Daugman's well-known IrisCode. The system was evaluated with 595 iris comparisons.Iris photographs showing latanoprost-induced pigmentation changes were correctly matched with pretreatment photographs of the same irises with an error probability similar to that for matching equivalent pairs of photographs in intact eyes.Our results indicate that the pigmentation changes studied do not seem to have a significant effect on the standard identification algorithm.