Iris recognition as a biometric technique for personal identification and verification is examined. The motivation for this stems from the observation that the human iris provides a unique structure suitable for non-invasive biometric assessment. In particular the irises are as distinct as fingerprints or patterns of retinal blood vessels and the appearance of the iris is amenable to remote examination. In this paper we have used a database of iris images of more than 100 people, which was used in the implementation of the iris recognition software. The software developed uses a novel technique of localization, alignment, pattern matching of the irises and finally the decision regarding the degree of match.