Bath-based Smart Sensors, a pioneer of iris recognition technology, has been acquired by FotoNation in a deal that will put its products into millions of devices across the world.
Over the past 10 years Smart Sensors, based at Bath's Innovation Centre, has developed tools for iris feature extraction, biometric key creation and fast-matching which operate across a range of product and processor platforms. 
The use of biometric authentication and identification systems is rapidly increasing and becoming commonplace on mobile computing, notebooks, PCs, tablets and other devices.
Smart Sensors’ technology increases security on these devices and eliminates the need for passwords. It can also be used to authenticate e-commerce transactions and for security access to buildings.
Nearly two billion digital cameras and smart devices are powered by imaging technology designed by FotoNation, a subsidiary of California-based Tessera Technologies.
It said integrating Smart Sensors’ iris-recognition innovations with its own imaging technologies would create powerful new products.
FotoNation senior vice-president of engineering and general manager, Petronel Bigioi, said: “The iris structure yields five times as many distinct, identifiable features compared to fingerprints.
“Smart Sensors’ team of PhD engineers has been focused on developing and improving iris-based biometric systems for over a decade. Integrating their capabilities with FotoNation’s class-leading face detection, tracking and recognition capacities will enable our customers to deliver unique solutions tailored for mobile devices and other high-volume products, with exciting opportunities in the growing field of biometric authentication and identification.”
Smart Sensors general manager Martin George added: FotoNation’s complementary expertise and technology portfolio, along with its strong relationships in the smartphone and camera markets, will help us accelerate the adoption of SSL's technology in high-volume applications.”
Financial details of the deal have not been disclosed.
