EyeVEIL

Abstract

Mixed reality headsets are being designed with integrated eye trackers: cameras that image the user's eye to infer gaze location and pupil diameter. While the intent is to improve the quality of experience, built-in eye trackers create a security vulnerability for hackers - high resolution images of the user's iris. Anyone stealing an iris image has effectively captured a gold standard biometric, relied on for secure authentication in applications such as banking and voting. We present a low cost solution to degrade iris authentication while still permitting the utility of gaze tracking with acceptable accuracy. By demonstrating this solution on a commodity eye tracker, this paper urges the community to think about iris based authentication as a byproduct of eye tracking, and create solutions that empower a user to control this biometric.