Nowadays biometric data acquisition and processing systems for person identity verification and / or identification are increasingly used (both in military applications-person identification in military operations and war theatres, but also in civilian applications-mobile employee enrolment and accounting systems). Such systems and especially mobile biometric iris recognition systems are expensive and also brings big security issues (loosing such a mobile device can expose the company or can break the cover of a military operation by exposing personal identification data of agents or informants). This paper presents a functional architecture of a mobile, low cost system for biometric iris data type acquisition and processing for personal identity verification. The particularity of this system is that it is a low cost, but in the same time offers an acceptable performance and security level. The paper presents the hardware and software architecture, but also shows how the device is connected with other systems in order to obtain processing and storage capacity for the recognition process. The paper is structured on three chapters presenting the hardware components, the software tools and programs, the connectivity and security issues, and ends with some experimental data and conclusions.