The invention, which is an embodiment of what the inventor calls, “Active Behavior Enhanced Iris Recognition Authentication”, employs a sequential iris imaging process where the authenticating party directs his or her gaze in specific directions, or closes their eyes for each image, so that an “eye state order” can be used to improve authentication security. Authentication security is strengthened based upon the reduced likelihood that a potential intruder would 1.) know what the correct sequence of eye states (i.e. up, down, left, right, camera view and closed) were associated with the control authentication template; 2.) be able to successfully “hack” the authentication server in order to gain access to the iris image information and also the eye state order information which would be required in order to fully compromise the authentication system. The technique embodied by the invention represents an overlay of a known, ordered sequence, over the iris recognition authentication process itself.