Experts and official reports are casting doubt on plans to use iris scanning to improve security at national borders.

This week UK Home Secretary David Blunkett reportedly won the backing of his G8 counterparts to rapidly develop an iris-based biometric system as an extra check on the identity of international travellers.

But technical reports in the UK and US have expressed doubts about whether biometrics will be able to do what ministers hope they can.

Experts have also voiced reservations about large scale use of iris scanning which has yet to be tested on significant numbers of people.

Markus Kuhn, a lecturer in computer security at the University of Cambridge computer lab, said biometrics were gaining popularity because they were a relatively reliable way to verify someone's identity.

"There's a great amount of information in the iris that makes it possible to reduce the false accept/reject ratios to less than one in a million," he said.

"Biometrics are useful as confirmation of your claimed identity."

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