Iris Experts Group - II Homepage

Summary

A forum for the discussion of technical questions of interest to USG agencies and their staff that are employing or may employ iris recognition to carry out their mission.  

Description

Discussion Groups:

• Iris Examiner Training
• Iris Camera Selection Guidance-Government
• Iris Camera Selection Guidance-Commercial

Mailing List

Send a note to IEG-II [at] nist.gov

if you wish to be added to (or dropped from) the mailing list for IEG-II. Please include your name, affiliation and an affiliated email address. On an annual basis, we review our mailing lists and purge addresses that are bouncing. 

mailto:ieg-ii [at] nist.gov subject=IEG General Mailing List – Add  
mailto:IEG-II [at] nist.gov subject=IEG General Mailing List – Drop 

Recent Announcements:

09/01/2022  Recommendations to OSAC by discussion groups

OSAC, https://www.nist.gov/organization-scientific-area-committees-forensic-science, works on development of standards for the forensic community.  Some of their interests overlap with those of the IEG. 

The IEG discussion groups are currently engaged in preparing recommendations for OSAC on two topics, with expectation of additional topics in the future.  The current topics are

• Iris Examiner Training
• Iris Image Capture

If you have interest in participating in the preparation and review of IEG recommendations to OSAC,  please join one or more of our discussion groups.   You may direct questions to james.matey [at] nist.gov .

08/16/2022  June 2023 Annual meeting and other updates

• We recently purged our address lists of emails that are bouncing.  Everyone who remains on one or more address lists should get an email/invite by the end of August. 
• We recently setup Google Drive folders to share materials with the members of our various address lists.  You should have gotten an invite if you belong to one of the lists.  If you do not, please contact james.matey [at] nist.gov .
• Our annual meeting for 2023 will be held on Thursday June 15, 2023.  It will be virtual, details to follow.  There is construction underway at NIST that prevents use of our regular meeting room and the NIST cafeteria in June  2023.  On the basis of input from participants in past meetings, we will consider a hybrid meeting in 2024.   Suggestions for topics, speakers and improvements in the meeting process are welcome – write to james.matey [at] nist.gov .
• The June 2022 meeting was well attended and the speakers well received.  Thanks to all the speakers and to the audience participants for making the meeting a success.

04/11/2022:  June 2022 Meeting – Agenda

Here is the draft agenda for the meeting on June 23 -- link .

It was recently pointed out that the IEG meeting on June 23 overlaps with the  CVPR meeting (https://cvpr2022.thecvf.com/).   This overlap is regrettable, but shifting the IEG meeting this later would cause complications.  The meeting date will stand;  we will avoid the conflict in the future

03/14/2022:  June 2022 Meeting – Registration Open     

Registration for the  June 2022 IEG Meeting, which will be held virtually on Thursday, June 23, 2022, is now open at https://www.nist.gov/news-events/events/2022/06/iris-experts-group-ieg-meeting-2022

• Registration required, though free.  See registration page for details.
• The agenda is being prepared and should be ready in the first week of April.  Suggestions for topics and speakers (as well as improvements to meeting process) are welcome.  Send suggestions to ieg-ii [at] nist.gov , with subject = IEG June Meeting.
• It is much easier for the organizers to deal with a no-show than to deal with a registration request after the closing date of June 21 .  Please register before the closing date, even if your attendance is not definite.

01/03/2022:  June 2022 Meeting

The June 2022 IEG Meeting will be held virtually on Thursday, June 23, 2022. 

• Meeting platform is BlueJeans, same as in 2021.
• Registration required, though free.  Registration instructions will be posted 1Q, 2022.
• Suggestions for topics and speakers (as well as improvements to meeting process) are welcome.  Send suggestions to ieg-ii [at] nist.gov , with subject = IEG June Meeting.

05/28/2021:  Agenda for 2021 Annual Meeting available. 

The agenda for the 2021 annual meeting on 17 June 2021 is available.  Registration is free, but required for all, including speakers and NIST staff.  Registration will provide you with  credentials to connect to the meeting. 

The registration form is available at  https://www.nist.gov/news-events/events/2021/06/iris-experts-group-ieg-meeting-2021

02/12/2021:  Registration for 2021 Annual Meeting is now open. 

Registration for our meeting on Thursday June 17, 2021 is now open at https://www.nist.gov/news-events/events/2021/06/iris-experts-group-ieg-meeting-2021

The meeting will be virtual via Blue Jeans.  Registration is required for all attendees including speakers and NIST staff.  There is no charge for registration.

Suggestions for speakers and topics may be submitted to ieg-II [at] nist.gov

9/14/2020:  June 2021 Meeting:  date assigned

Our meeting for June 2021 will take place on Thursday, June 17.  The format – in person, virtual or hybrid – remains to be determined. Details to follow.

Please send any suggestions/comments regarding  topics/speakers and/or meeting format to ieg-ii [at] nist.gov

7/31/2020:  June 2020 Meeting Completed, planning started for June 2021 Meeting

The June 25 meeting of the IEG was conducted online with few technical glitches.  We are beginning plans for our next general meeting in June 2021.  Please send any suggestions for topics/speakers to ieg-ii [at] nist.gov .

We agreed to have some small, ongoing, online follow up sessions on

• Iris Examiner Training
• Iris Camera Selection Guidance

See the new Discussion Groups section above for information on how to participate.

6/17/2020: Agenda for June 25^th Meeting

Here an updated agenda for the meeting. If you have not yet registered, please register as discussed below.

5/27/2020: Draft Agenda for June 25^th Meeting

Here is the agenda for the meeting. If you have not yet registered, please register as discussed below.

04/02/2020: Registration for June 2020 Meeting Open; Meeting will be virtual

As previously announced, our next meeting will be held on Thursday, June 25, 2020.   The original plan was to hold it on the NIST campus as we have done the past several years. However, COVID-19 presents that plan with a challenge.  NIST is closely monitoring guidance from Federal, State, and local health authorities on the outbreak of COVID-19. To protect the health and safety of NIST employees and the American public they continue to serve, NIST has decided to make the 2020 Iris Experts Group Meeting virtual-only.  

Preparation of an agenda is underway, though several weeks behind our usual schedule.  We are still accepting recommendations for the agenda – the themes at this point are:

• Presentation Attack Detection
• Ongoing Evaluation of Algorithms
• Iris Camera Selection
• Forensic Iris
• Open - TBD

We are working to firm up topics and speakers; we will send out a draft agenda as soon as possible. 

As of today, registration for the virtual meeting is now live at https://appam.certain.com/profile/form/index.cfm?PKformID=0x58198abcd .  If you plan to attend the webinar, you must register – even if you are a NIST staff member (this is different from past practice).  If you plan to attend, please register promptly after receipt of this email.  We need to get a head count so that we can size the virtual meeting appropriately – it is easier on the planning process to drop a few attendees at the last minute than to add a few.    

We are considering Blue Jeans and WebEx as the virtual meeting platform because both have been approved for such use at NIST. If anyone who wishes to attend works in an organization where either of these options would present a problem, please advise ASAP. 

We plan to finalize a platform and an agenda by May 1.  Instructions for accessing the webinar will be provided in advance of the meeting day.

• For questions/recommendations about the meeting, please email ieg-ii [at] nist.gov or call James Matey (908-839-9002, EDT) directly. 
• For registration help follow the directions on the registration page.  If that fails contact james.matey [at] nist.gov or Pauline.Truong [at] nist.gov .
• For more information on COVID-19, please visit: cdc.gov/covid19.

07/10/2019: Hold the date for the next IEG Meeting

The next IEG meeting is scheduled for Thursday, June 25, 2020;  the venue is NIST’s Gaithersburg campus.  Registration details to follow in February 2020; we anticipate no changes from the most recent meeting in registration and other logistical details

SUGGESTIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS for the agenda may be sent to IEG-II [at] nist.gov .

07/10/2019: Thanks to participants in the June 27 2019 meeting

We had a very productive meeting on June 27.  Thanks to all who participated, particularly the speakers.

SUGGESTIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS for improvements in future meetings may be sent to IEG-II [at] nist.gov .

06/24/2019:  IEG Meeting, June 2019 - Final Agenda

The final agenda for the upcoming meeting on Thursday 6/27/2019 is here.

03/31/2019:  Update to IEG Meeting Agenda

An updated agenda has been posted here and in the previous announcement .  We have two speakers who are still working on approvals for their presentations.  If anyone has any recommendations, we may have a slot open.  Please send recommendations to ieg-ii [at] nist.gov ;   a title, author list and brief abstract would be very helpful. 

Please register (registration is free) as soon as convenient – it makes our planning easier.  All attendees (including speakers) who are not NIST staff need to register to get credentials to come onto campus.

03/15/2019:   Next IEG Meeting Agenda and Registration

Registration is now open for the IEG Meeting to be held Thursday 27 June 2019 at NIST/Gaithersburg in the West Square meeting room adjacent to the cafeteria in the Administration Building, Building 101. 

The agenda for the meeting may be found here .  The current agenda is a draft, it will be updated by the end of March with additional details from the speakers and perhaps some reordering of the talks.  We do not expect major changes.  One of our speakers had to drop out, so we have an open slot.  Suggestions for a replacement are welcome – ieg-ii [at] nist.gov .

Follow this link to the registration page.  All attendees who are not NIST staff need to register (including speakers) in order to get credentials to come onto the NIST campus.  Please register even if you have a badge from another USG agency.  Registration is free and will provide you with credentials that will enable you to bypass the line at the Visitor Center – the credentials will make it easier for you and the Visitor Center staff.  Registration is open until June 20.   After June 20,  admission to the campus for this meeting will require personal intervention on the part of the meeting organizers – not impossible, but inconvenient.  It is better to register and be a no show than to call the day before for special handling.

Directions and instructions for arrival are on the registration page and will also be sent to you by email after registration.  Be sure to arrive with the identifying credentials discussed on the registration page and in the email you will receive.  We cannot get you on campus without them.

Free registration means that you will be on your own for refreshments and lunch.  The NIST cafeteria is adjacent to the meeting room and is open from 0730 to 1500.  They take cash and credit. 

You can arrive at the main NIST entrance as early as 0700.

If you have any difficulty registering, please use the help form on the registration page.  If that fails, send a note to ieg-ii [at] nist.gov .  You can send any questions about other details of the meeting to that address as well.

02/05/2018:  Next IEG Meeting remains Thursday, June 27, 2019

The recent shutdown delayed preparation of the meeting agenda.  We are still accepting suggestions for topics and authors.  If you wrote earlier and did not receive a reply, please write again (IEG-II [at] nist.gov ) .  We hope to have the agenda ready by late March.

The shutdown also delayed the setup of the registration page.  We hope to have the registration page running in early March.

12/10/2018:Hold the date for the next IEG Meeting

The next IEG meeting is scheduled for Thursday, June 27, 2019;  the venue is NIST’s Gaithersburg campus.  Registration details to follow.

We are working on the agenda now and plan to have it posted in early February.   SUGGESTIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS for the agenda may be sent to IEG-II [at] nist.gov .

09/20/2018: Follow-up discussion on iris camera standards

At the June 2018 IEG meeting we began a discussion of the standards relevant to the selection of iris cameras for government applications – What standards exist, What issues need to be addressed, How to demonstrate conformance. NIST published a paper this week, see https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/TechnicalNotes/NIST.TN.2018.pdf , on these topics. That paper should be regarded as a starting point for continuation of the discussion. We are in the process of setting up a follow-up IEG meeting, likely a web- or tele-meeting to discuss that paper and other related issues. Please send a note to IEG-II [at] nist.gov if you would like to participate in the discussions and/or want to comment on the paper or make suggestions for the agenda of the follow-up meeting.

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Background:

During the period 2009 to 2014, an informal series of meetings were conducted on a semi-annual basis to discuss US government (USG) interests in iris recognition. Attendance was by invitation and the attendees were either USG staff who had interest in the questions submitted for discussion or recognized experts in some aspect of iris recognition who might reasonably be expected to help formulate answers to the questions. The meetings were called meetings of the Iris Experts Group (IEG) and were generally regarded as helpful in formulating answers to technical questions about iris recognition for the USG.

Purpose:

In 2015 NIST was asked to restart the group.  Under a new name, IEG-II, the group remains a forum for the discussion of technical questions of interest to USG agencies and their staff that are employing or may employ iris recognition to carry out their mission.  IEG-II will continue to solicit questions of interest from the USG community and to invite iris experts to make relevant presentations, discuss those questions and make recommendations regarding answers to the questions.  It will also entertain suggestions from the wider community regarding topics/questions that the USG community should be considering.  Topics that are taken under consideration for future meetings will be posted below.

Meetings:

The IEG meetings are normally held in the Washington DC area (NIST Gaithersburg MD as a default).  Teleconferences can be setup to explore topics outside of the in-person meetings.  Speakers will be explicitly invited; potential speakers may submit proposals for presentations on topics of interest to USG.  Anyone may register to attend.  Normally, there is no registration fee.  Attendees must have credentials that will enable them to visit the NIST campus – see https://www.nist.gov/about-nist/visit .  The coordinators for the meetings are James Matey and Patrick Grother, reachable via IEG-II [at] nist.gov

People who wish to suggest topics for discussion at future IEG-II meetings or to make proposals regarding presentations  on topics should send a message to IEG-II [at] nist.gov. Please include either "IEG-II: Presentation Proposal - ..." or "IEG-II: Topic/Question Proposal - ..." along with a brief description in the subject line.  The body of the emails should be sufficiently detailed to enable the organizers to assess the proposals.  

Mailing List:

Send a note to IEG-II [at] nist.gov if you wish to be added to (or dropped from) the mailing list for IEG-II. Please include your name, affiliation and email address.

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IEG-II Links

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IEG Announcements Archive