A LANCASTER firm is shaking into the realm of James Bond with a top-secret car tracking device.

Iris Automotive is stirring majors minds with unlimited uses being touted for its clever military technology.

The firm has more than 40 years experience in developing sophisticated systems for all manner of demanding environments around the world.

And interest in its latest 'toy' is big - with possible advancement into other areas.

Says the company's Steve Warner: "This is something developed in Lancaster by the people of Lancaster and meets new standards for the tracking of stolen vehicles.

"It is an intelligent open platform telematics system and has many uses, not just in tracking stolen vehicles."

He explains: "The introduction of the Thatcham CAT5 standards has seen the raising of the bar in terms of stolen vehicle tracking.

"It calls for vehicles to be fitted with insurance industry-approved systems which use telematics to alert owners of the vehicles to the theft and direct police to the location of the vehicle.

"Iris uses true global GSM, quad band technology - most mobile phones are dual - and it integrates with and can talk to the vehicle's own communications network."

In layman's terms that means that the system can inform police of the location of a car to within 10 metres - and it reports in at pre-determined intervals to demonstrate that it is still active.

"Going back to the military configurations, Iris' security system uses technology which has 18,420 trillion combinations on key coding, and so is more secure than DNA," says Steve.

"And there are other uses - but I cannot say too much about those at the moment."