South Korea’s AJ2 says iris biometrics natural successor to facial recognition

Long‑range iris recognition could rival facial recognition as the dominant biometric technology. That’s if AJ2 has anything to do with it.

South Korean company AJ2 is positioning iris biometrics as the next big shift in the industry, arguing that the technology offers both higher accuracy and stronger privacy protections.

At the Global Media Meet‑up in Seoul, AJ2 CEO Edward Jung touted iris biometrics as one of the most stable and difficult‑to‑forge human identifiers, reports Vietnam Plus. The iris develops at birth and remains largely unchanged throughout a person’s life. Irises are also highly unique with the chances of two people having identical patterns being extremely low.

This inherent stability, Jung argued, makes it a natural successor to facial recognition, which is increasingly vulnerable to environmental interference, regulatory pressure and AI‑driven spoofing.

AJ2 points to how the iris contains more than 170 independent identifying characteristics and can achieve accuracy rates of up to 99.99 percent. However, iris recognition has historically faced certain challenges. Early systems required users to stand close to a sensor, were expensive to deploy, and performed poorly outdoors or in bright light.

AJ2 says it has overcome these barriers by developing its own specialized cameras, IR LED modules, and proprietary AI algorithms. The company claims its system can capture irises at distances of one to three metres, even in sunny outdoor environments and even when users are wearing glasses. The technology is fully patented, according to the company.

AJ2’s long‑range iris modules are already being used at airports in the U.S. and Canada, where they have been integrated into security control systems, according to the report. The company is also participating in government biometric tenders in Singapore and preparing for large‑scale deployments in Mexico. Beyond border control, the technology is being tested for contactless payments, online identity verification and national ID systems.

As synthetic faces become easier to produce and harder to detect, facial recognition is facing a reckoning. However, biometric companies are leveraging algorithms and machine learning (what gets called “AI”) to fight AI-fuelled deepfakery. Fighting fire with fire, as it were.

But AJ2 argues that the iris is extremely difficult to replicate using AI‑generated imagery, making it an attractive option for institutions concerned about biometric spoofing. While this may be true, it may also be that demand for iris spoofing is limited. But this is not deterring the Korean firm as AJ2 says it aims to build an identification ecosystem containing more than 100 million registered irises.

In 2022, South Korea-based KT&C won government accreditation for a patented iris recognition solution that works at a meter’s (3.3 feet) distance. In the United States, iris recognition via a mobile app is being deployed by ICE for real-time identity verification from distances up to a meter.  The FBI NGI database has over 6 million iris biometric records as of November 2025.

Article Topics

AJ2  |  biometric identification  |  biometrics  |  iris biometrics  |  iris recognition  |  long-distance  |  South Korea