By combining technology with science, PayEye has created a whole, independent and secure ecosystem, which consists of proprietary, innovative eyePOS terminals, an electronic wallet for users, algorithms converting the iris into a biometric pattern and in the future, also solutions for e-commerce.
PayEye is a Polish fintech that introduced the world’s first so secure, convenient and complete payment based on both payment acceptance and user identification using iris biometrics.
The iris identification is the most effective method of human identification among all biometric methods.
This is another stage in the development of biometric payments, which, due to its reliability and zero false rejection rates, has the potential to replace existing forms of user authentication.
The company has brought solutions from the future into everyday life. The direction of biometrics for any industry will soon be natural and for several reasons. The pandemic has made consumers look for a convenient and safe payment system. Similar expectations, if only for the sake of maintaining a sanitary regime, have entrepreneurs, who do not want to expose their own staff to unnecessary additional contact, as well as their customers. On top of that, time can be saved, as the whole transaction process can be clearly accelerated. Biometrics also has the advantage of supporting strong user authentication, and it is already apparent that these solutions can be used much more widely in our everyday lives, in addition to payments, e.g. as a form of access to premises or warehouses, confirmation of contracts, decisions or personal identification.
The innovation of the solution, undiscovered so far in the filed of biometrics, caused PayEye to obtain a huge – nearly 11-million PLN grant from the National Centre for Research and Development for industrial research and development of a biometric payment system based on transactions confirmed by the identification of the user through iris and face biometrics.
Iris recognition is considered to be the most perfect method of biometric identity confirmation. Thanks to the enormous information content and uniqueness of the iris pattern, it is possible to identify individuals without error, even in very large populations. The irises of the left and right eye differ, as do the irises of twins, including monozygotic twins. This makes it possible for the method to be used even in huge projects such as India’s national biometric citizen identity programme, which has so far registered more than 1.4 billion iris pairs. The iris therefore appears to be the ideal biometric identifier for PayEye customers.
Frank Burch, an American ophthalmologist, proposes the idea of using the iris of the eye to recognise people.
James Doggarts conducts an analysis of the complexity of the iris pattern and hypothesises its usefulness for the purpose of identifying individuals.
Aran Safir and Leonard Flom, two ophthalmologists patent the concept of recognising the iris based on its uniqueness in the population, building on Burch’s work.
John Daugman, professor of computer science at Cambridge University, is developing the first automatic iris recognition algorithm using so-called IrisCodes at the request and with the help of Safir and Flom.
A US patent is granted for the Daugman method.
Safir and Flom’s patent covering the general concept of iris recognition as a biometric method expires, allowing a number of new entrants into the market.
John Daugman’s patent expires, opening the door even wider for the biometrics market.
PayEye was the world’s first company to implement a commercial biometric payment system based on the identification of the iris of the eye.
You often hear about unauthorised payments with payment cards. Our eye payment system solves this issue – payment confirmation takes place by identifying the user using the iris biometric pattern on the eyePOS payment device. Neither the eye nor the iris itself can be hacked or stolen. It is also not possible to make a transaction using a photo or mock-up, as our payment device verifies the vitality of the eye during identification.
In order to identify the user and confirm the transaction, it is necessary to compare the biometric pattern of the eye with the basic pattern, i.e. the user’s eyes. In addition, a PIN is required for selected transactions for additional security.