AI Scanner Can Distinguish Whether An Iris is Living or Dead

Biometrics are increasingly becoming a fixture of daily life, from using a fingerprint or face scan to access our phones to facial recognition scans during airport security.

But biometric tech can be tampered with and researchers are developing methods to prevent spoofing, such as the Korean researchers who developed a heat-detecting sensor to ensure nefarious actors can't fake your fingerprints.

But what about an iris scan? Polish researchers at the Warsaw University of Technology have developed an algorithm to distinguish between the irises of living and dead people with 99 percent accuracy, Engadget reported Tuesday.  The scientists did this by training an AI on a database of irises, both living and dead.

The idea of scanning the eye of a dead person is a macabre notion, but someone trying to gain entry to a smartphone to access information and/or money could resort to desperate measures.

The method isn't foolproof, however. The algorithm can only tell the difference between living and dead eyes if the person in question has been deceased for 16 hours or more. That leaves a not insignificant window of time for someone to gain access to a phone using the deceased's eyes.