Next Generation Identification

Biometrics is the buzz in identification technology these days. Saturday, the Washington Post reported on a $1 billion project, called Next Generation Identification, being shopped around by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to build the worlds “largest computer database of peoples’ physical characteristics.” The FBI already houses one of the largest databases of biometric, but this 10-year contract will look to expand the database and make it searchable to the over 900,000 federal, state and local law enforcement agents who have access to it now. Fingerprints, DNA, iris patters, palm prints and face shape are among the most common measures of biometrics – but soon, voice signature, walking patters and other less definable characteristics will be able to give away your identity to law enforcement, for good or ill.

 

Government contractors of all sizes have been diving into biometrics both in the U.S. and abroad. Names like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Accenture, Electronic Data System, SAIC and others litter the landscape of heavy hitters looking to help the government identify would-be terrorists and would-be accountants. The Navy, Army and Marine Corps have also allocated extensive amounts of money towards biometric use in theaters of operation. Military Information Technology reported in October that the Defense Department had created the Biometrics Defense Agency (BDA) as a result of the former Biometric Task Force “outgrowing its mission and organizational home.”

Dr. Myra Gray, director of the Biometrics Task Force says, “One of our missions is to provide the standards by which the biometrics community operates. We will develop policy to help guide the biometrics community and determine an acceptable timeframe for turning around an answer.” To help with this mission the president provided $320 million in June’s war supplemental bill “to integrate existing, disparate biometric tools and databases across DoD.” An asterisk to that dollar amount is that some of that money has been used to enroll Iraqis in the testing phase so that we can test collection methods and accuracy levels before rolling out to a wider US-based audience.

 The Department of Homeland Security have been plenty busy themselves, rolling out their US-VISIT program requiring foreigners to have 10 fingerprints scanned as they enter the country, USA Today reported earlier this month. The government has thus far spent $1.7 billion on that particular program.

 Concerns over trending towards biometrics have been raised, however. The Electronic Privacy Information Center executive director Marc Rotenberg has raised awareness that since the FBI’s National Crime Information Center database (the database currently being used and earmarked to be expanded) is exempt from the Privacy Act requirement that records be accurate, what your doing is, “giving the federal government access to an extraordinary amount of information linked to biometric identifiers that is becoming increasingly inaccurate.” Also, privacy advocates point to the problematic situation where victims of biometric identity theft would be put into very dubious limbo – Bourne Identity, anyone?

But Thomas E. Bush III, assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division, outlines the importance of this is FBI priority: “Bigger. Faster. Better. That’s the bottom line.” The bottom line indeed.