Iris Recognition Performance in Children: A Longitudinal Study

There is uncertainty around the effect of aging of children on biometric characteristics impacting applications relying on biometric recognition, particularly as the time between enrollment and query increases. Though there have been studies of such effects for iris recognition in adults, there have been few studies evaluating impact in children. This paper presents longitudinal analysis from 209 subjects aged 4 to 11 years at enrollment and six additional sessions over a period of 3 years. The influence of time, dilation and enrollment age on iris recognition have been analyzed and their statistical importance has been evaluated. A minor aging effect is noted which is statistically significant, but practically insignificant and is comparatively less important than other variability factors. Practical biometric applications of iris recognition in children are feasible for a time frame of at least 3 years between samples, for ages 4 to 11 years, even in presence of aging, though we note practical difficulties in enrolling young children with cameras not designed for the purpose. To the best of our knowledge, the database used in this study is the only dataset of longitudinal iris images from children for this age group and time period that is available for research.