Ophthalmologists inducted into Inventors Hall of Fame

San Francisco-Ophthalmologists Leonard Flom, MD, and Aran Safir, MD, have been inducted into the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s National Inventors Hall of Fame for the invention of the iris recognition scanner.

Iris-recognition technology has earned a reputation as the most accurate biometric identifier, while providing advantages of speed and ease of use in comparison to alternatives such as fingerprinting. It works by matching a scanned image of a user's iris with a previously collected image in order to confirm an individual's identity.

The iris of the eye is an ideal biometric identification measure because it contains more detailed information than any other part of the human body, and is unique for every individual.

“It has been extremely rewarding to see our invention’s impact on global security systems over the past 26 years,” said Dr. Flom, a retired ophthalmologist in Fairfield, CT. “In the next 5 to 10 years, I expect that biometrics will be as familiar as smartphones, and iris identification will be commonplace . . . . The applications are almost endless.”

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