Iris Experts Group - II Homepage

Summary

A forum for the discussion of technical questions of interest to iris recognition developers, USG agencies and their staff, and other parties that are advancing and employing iris recognition. 

Description

Documents for Public Comment 

Some of our IEG activities generate documents that may benefit from public comment.  There are three  general categories:

• Documents that are sent to OSAC for further work.
• Documents that are provided to another entity (e.g. FBI NGI) for dissemination.
• Documents that will be submitted for publication.

Lists of documents that are out for public comment and the rules regarding such comment may be found at  Iris Experts Group Public Comments.

Discussion Groups:

The IEG supports ongoing, online discussion groups on relevant topics.

As of October 2024,  the Discussion Groups have been consolidated.  See IEG: Discusssion Groups

 

Mailing List – General Distribution

This list is for general information, particularly about our annual meeting.  It does not include the monthly discussion groups.

Participation in IEG activities is open to anyone who can legally conduct business with NIST.

Send a note to IEG-II [at] nist.gov (IEG-II[at]nist[dot]gov)  that includes:

• your name, affiliation and your preferred address for emails.
• your email address associated with Google Drive;  the general distribution list gets access to our General Distribution folder on Google Drive.
  • NOTE: Google Drive access requirements changed in late winter 2025 .  We can no longer provide access to an email that is not associated with a Google Account.
    • If you had access to our shared Google folders in the past, that access may have been broken by the access requirement change.
• NOTE: Applications from addresses that are associated with SPAM and/or malicious activity may be ignored by mail filters.

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

On an annual basis, we review our mailing lists and purge addresses that are bouncing. 

 

Recent Announcements:

 

06/24/2025  Annual Meeting Updated Agenda

The most recent update to the agenda for our meeting on 06/26/2025 is here.

06/19/2025  Annual Meeting Update & Shared Resources Notes

1.  Reminder: Our annual meeting for 2025  is on Thursday 26 June.  This meeting is virtual using ZoomForGov.
   1. Registration is free, but required.  If you plan to attend, please register now.
   2. Registration is at   https://www.nist.gov/news-events/events/2025/06/iris-experts-group-ieg-annual-meeting.
   3. The agenda is at https://www.nist.gov/document/ieg-ii-summer-2025-agenda-20250508.  Some details are changing; we will update next week.
   4. If you are registered, you should get an email with the sign in link by noon (eastern) on June 25.  It will come from  noreply [at] certain.nist.gov (noreply[at]certain[dot]nist[dot]gov).
      1. If you do not get your sign in credentials by 1400 on June 25,  send a note to our moderator  james.matey [at] nist.gov (james[dot]matey[at]nist[dot]gov)
2. We make use of Google Drive for some our communications and collaborations.  Your access to our shared Google Drive folders may be broken:
   1. A change in sharing policy occurred recently.  Formerly, we could share to any email address.  Now, we can only share to Google accounts.
      1. The Google account may be associated with an address that is not .gmail.com, but it needs to be a Google account.
   2. The link for our general distribution folder is https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Dxj2_lu0pLc0GMPaMf81JV7yNZMWNBLA?usp=sharing  This should have  View only permissions for  everyone participating in IEG activities.
   3. The link for the folder for discussion group activities is https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hr2K8sdRaTh6KmEfPUme7hzu_Ltu69FD?usp=sharing.  This should have  Edit permissions for everyone signed up for the monthly discussion group.
   4. If your access is broken, send the email address associated with your Google account to our moderator, james.matey [at] nist.gov (james[dot]matey[at]nist[dot]gov).
3. Access to the GitHub repo that we use for the discussion group should still work, nothing changed.
   1. If you are signed up for the discussion group. You should have access to  https://github.com/JRMatey-NIST/IEG-DiscussionGroups.
   2. If you think you should have access, and are having difficulty, send our moderator a note, including your GitHub ID.
4. If you get a 404 error when trying to access any of our shared resources, that likely means you are not logged into the resource.
                

04/14/2025  IEG Annual Meeting Agenda

Here is the working agenda for the June 26 meeting:  here   Some of the speakers are waiting on final approval from their organizations, so changes are possible.  We will post updates as available.

03/28/2025   IEG Annual Meeting Update

As previously announced, our annual meeting will be held on Thursday, June 26, 2025 from 0900 to 1700 Eastern.  

Registration is free, but required for all, including NIST staff and all speakers.

• You can register at https://www.nist.gov/news-events/events/2025/06/iris-experts-group-ieg-annual-meeting .
• The meeting is virtual only.  As many requested, we had hoped to make it hybrid, but construction in our usual meeting venue made that impossible.
• Our planning for the meeting is running a little late, due to circumstances beyond our control.  Our apologies.
• A link to the agenda will be posted here shortly. 

Please register early.  It is much easier for our conferences and meeting  services staff to deal with no shows than with last minute registrants.

 

10/24/2024  IEG Annual Meeting 2025

The 2025 meeting will be held on June 26, 2025.  We hope to make this hybrid, with the physical meeting in newly renovated spaces at NIST.  Details to follow. 

Please send recommendations for topics & speakers to ieg-ii [at] nist.gov (ieg-ii[at]nist[dot]gov) .

 

10/24/2024  Recent IEG Success Stories

The FBI NGI Iris Service has posted documents that the IEG created or contributed to:  see https://fbibiospecs.fbi.gov/biometric-modalities-1/ngi-iris-services  Resources

• IREX-V

• Iris Camera Selection Guidance

• Forensic Iris: A Review

OSAC is processing two documents that came out of our discussion groups:

• OSAC 2024-N-0004, Standard Guide for Capturing Iris Images for Use with Iris Recognition Systems : completed OSAC review, sent to ASTM

• OSAC 2024-N-0005 Standard Guide for Minimum Training Recommendations of Iris Image Examiners : in review at OSAC

Thanks to all who contributed.

 

10/24/2024  IEG Discussion Group Updates

• The original tasks for the IEG discussion groups are largely completed (see 10/24/2024  Recent IEG Success Stories above). 

  • As a result the groups are undergoing a reorganization.  See the updated Discussion Group section.

• We setup a process for soliciting public comments.

   

06/12/2024 Annual Meeting on Thursday 06/13/2024: Updated agenda

An updated agenda is available at here.

IEG Announcements Archive

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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 (IEG-II[at]nist[dot]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 (IEG-II[at]nist[dot]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 (IEG-II[at]nist[dot]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

IREX Homepage 
IEG Announcements Archive