You hold your smartphone in front of your face, the angle and distance guided by on-screen feedback. It flashes near-infrared (NIR) light into your eyes — a brief dull-red glow. Your smartphone recognizes one or both of your irises, and unlocks itself.
At least, that’s the new smartphone login scenario. Previously seen mostly in military devices and fixed installations, iris scanning is joining other biometric authentication methods (such as fingerprint scanning, facial recognition and voice recognition) intended to move mobile devices beyond the limitations of password-based security.
