A Problem with the Assessment of an Iris Identification System
Michel Dekking, André T. Hensbergen · SIAM Review · 2009
Most probability and statistics textbooks are loaded with dice, coins, and balls in urns. These are perfect metaphors for actual phenomena where uncertainty plays a role. However, students will greatly appreciate a real-life example. In this paper we examine the mathematics of an implementation of an iris recognition system. We show that the determination of a crucial spread parameter is made on implicit assumptions that are not fulfilled. Some elementary probability theory calculations show that this leads in general to an optimistic assessment of the reliability of the identification system. Then we use a famous inequality to quantify this optimism.