National foreword

This British Standard reproduces verbatim ISO/IEC 19794‑6:2005 and implements it as the UK national standard.

The UK participation in its preparation was entrusted to Technical Committee IST/44, Biometrics, which has the responsibility to:

aid enquirers to understand the text;
present to the responsible international/European committee any enquiries on the interpretation, or proposals for change, and keep UK interests informed;
monitor related international and European developments and promulgate them in the UK.

A list of organizations represented on this committee can be obtained on request to its secretary.

Cross-references

The British Standards which implement international publications referred to in this document may be found in the BSI Catalogue under the section entitled “International Standards Correspondence Index”, or by using the “Search” facility of the BSI Electronic Catalogue or of British Standards Online.

This publication does not purport to include all the necessary provisions of a contract. Users are responsible for its correct application.

Compliance with a British Standard does not of itself confer immunity from legal obligations.

This British Standard was published under the authority of the Standards Policy and Strategy Committee on 29 July 2005

Foreword

ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International Electrotechnical Commission) form the specialized system for worldwide standardization. National bodies that are members of ISO or IEC participate in the development of International Standards through technical committees established by the respective organization to deal with particular fields of technical activity. ISO and IEC technical committees collaborate in fields of mutual interest. Other international organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO and IEC, also take part in the work. In the field of information technology, ISO and IEC have established a joint technical committee, ISO/IEC JTC 1.

International Standards are drafted in accordance with the rules given in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2.

The main task of the joint technical committee is to prepare International Standards. Draft International Standards adopted by the joint technical committee are circulated to national bodies for voting. Publication as an International Standard requires approval by at least 75 % of the national bodies casting a vote.

ISO/IEC 19794‑6 was prepared by Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology, Subcommittee SC 37, Biometrics.

ISO/IEC 19794 consists of the following parts, under the general title Information technology - Biometric data interchange formats:

Part 1: Framework
Part 2: Finger minutiae data
Part 3: Finger pattern spectral data
Part 4: Finger image data
Part 5: Face image data
Part 6: Iris image data

The following parts are under preparation:

Part 7: Signature/sign behavioral data
Part 8: Finger pattern skeletal data

Introduction

The purpose of this document is to define a standard for exchange of iris image information. This part of ISO/IEC 19794 contains a specific definition of attributes, a data record format for storing and transmitting the iris image and certain attributes, a sample record, and conformance criteria.

Currently, exchange of iris information between equipment from different vendors can only be done using a large-scale image of the entire eye. This is expensive in storage and bandwidth. To provide interoperability among vendors, it is necessary to define a standard, compact representation of a human iris.

The biometric data record specified in this part of ISO/IEC 19794 shall be embedded in a CBEFF-compliant structure in the CBEFF Biometric Data Block (BDB).

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) draw attention to the fact that it is claimed that compliance with this document may involve the use of patents concerning iris recognition given in Clause 6 and/or Annex A.

The ISO and IEC take no position concerning the evidence, validity and scope of this patent right.

The holder of this patent right has assured the ISO and IEC that he/she is willing to negotiate licenses under reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions with applicants throughout the world. In this respect, the statement of the holder of this patent right is registered with ISO and IEC. Information may be obtained from:

Iridian, Technologies, Inc.

Mr. Robert Levin Corporate Counsel

1245 N. Church Street

Moorestown, NJ 08057 USA

Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent rights other than those identified above. ISO and IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.

1 Scope

This part of ISO/IEC 19794 specifies two alternative image interchange formats for biometric authentication systems that utilize iris recognition.

The first is based on a rectilinear image storage format that may be a raw, uncompressed array of intensity values or a compressed format such as that specified by ISO/IEC 15444.

The second format is based on a polar image specification that requires certain pre-processing and image segmentation steps, but produces a much more compact data structure that contains only iris information.

Data that comply with either one of the iris image formats specified in this part of ISO/IEC 19794 are intended to be embedded in a CBEFF-compliant structure in the CBEFF Biometric Data Block (BDB) as specified in ISO/IEC 19785‑1.

2 Conformance

3 Normative references

4 Terms and definitions

5 Symbols and abbreviated terms

6 Iris image format specification

6.1 General

6.2 Image compression

6.3 Image pre-processing

6.4 Iris image biométrie data block

6.5 Iris header structures

Bibliography

BS ISO/IEC 19794-6:2005

Information technology. Biometric data interchange formats - Iris image data

Current

Published:

29 Jul 2005