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The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have issued a call for comments on their draft standards for biometrics.
Biometrics involve identifying individuals by unique characteristics such as fingerprints, faces, irises and palms. Because biometrics are unique and nearly impossible to forge, they help prevent fraud and identity theft. At the same time, they provide a convenient way for consumers to establish and verify their identities. Biometric technologies are increasingly being used to restrict access to secure work areas, to make identity documents such as passports or government IDs more tamper-resistant, and to conduct terrorism-related screening, check for prior criminal history, or assess whether an individual previously violated immigration law, as part of government program eligibility determinations or security risk assessments.
The NSTC Policy for Enabling the Development, Adoption and Use of Biometric Standards established a framework to reach interagency consensus on biometric standards for the federal government. It ensured that federal agencies such as the Departments of State, Justice, Defense and Homeland Security collect and exchange different types of biometric data in specific standardized formats. For example, the use of such standards ensures that biometric data on known or suspected terrorists collected by the Department of Defense in war zones are also useable by Department of Homeland Security’s screening operations at U.S. border crossings. The standards registry* is the result of interagency analysis and deliberation on numerous, often contradictory, standards currently available, and specifies which standards U.S. government agencies should use.
Public comments are due soon.
The standards registry is available at www.biometrics.gov/standards and the document can also be downloaded here. Vendors of biometric technologies, biometric researchers, law enforcement officials or others may send comments on the draft standard to standards@biometrics.gov by March 10. The subcommittee will review these comments and make any necessary adjustments to the registry before submitting it to COT for final approval.
The FBI is gearing up to create a massive computer database of people’s physical characteristics, all part of an effort the bureau says to better identify criminals and terrorists.
The bureau is expected to announce in coming days the awarding of a $1 billion, 10-year contract to help create the database that will compile an array of biometric information — from palm prints to eye scans. Kimberly Del Greco, the FBI’s Biometric Services section chief, said adding to the database is “important to protect the borders to keep the terrorists out, protect our citizens, our neighbors, our children so they can have good jobs, and have a safe country to live in.”
The FBI already has 55 million sets of fingerprints on file. In coming years, the bureau wants to compare palm prints, scars and tattoos, iris eye patterns, and facial shapes. The idea is to combine various pieces of biometric information to positively identify a potential suspect. A lot will depend on how quickly technology is perfected, according to Thomas Bush, the FBI official in charge of the Clarksburg, West Virginia, facility where the FBI houses its current fingerprint database. “Fingerprints will still be the big player,” Bush, assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division, told CNN. But he added, “Whatever the biometric that comes down the road, we need to be able to plug that in and play.”
First up, he said, are palm prints. The FBI has already begun collecting images and hopes to soon use these as an additional means of making identifications. Countries that are already using such images find 20 percent of their positive matches come from latent palm prints left at crime scenes, the FBI’s Bush said. The FBI has also started collecting mug shots and pictures of scars and tattoos. These images are being stored for now as the technology is fine-tuned. All of the FBI’s biometric data is stored on computers 30-feet underground in the Clarksburg facility. In addition, the FBI could soon start comparing people’s eyes — specifically the iris, or the colored part of an eye — as part of its new biometrics program called Next Generation Identification.
Nearby, at West Virginia University’s Center for Identification Technology Research, researchers are already testing some of these technologies that will ultimately be used by the FBI. “The best increase in accuracy will come from fusing different biometrics together,” said Bojan Cukic, the co-director of the center.
But it’s unnerving to privacy experts.
“It’s the beginning of the surveillance society where you can be tracked anywhere, any time and all your movements, and eventually all your activities will be tracked and noted and correlated,” said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Technology and Liberty Project. “People who don’t think mistakes are going to be made I don’t think fly enough,” said Steinhardt. He said thousands of mistakes have been made with the use of the so-called no-fly lists at airports — and that giving law enforcement widespread data collection techniques should cause major privacy alarms. “There are real consequences to people,” Steinhardt said.
You don’t have to be a criminal or a terrorist to be checked against the database.
More than 55 percent of the checks the FBI runs involve criminal background checks for people applying for sensitive jobs in government or jobs working with vulnerable people such as children and the elderly, according to the FBI. The FBI says it hasn’t been saving the fingerprints for those checks, but that may change. The FBI plans a so-called “rap-back” service in which an employer could ask the FBI to keep the prints for an employee on file and let the employer know if the person ever has a brush with the law. The FBI says it will first have to clear hurdles with state privacy laws, and people would have to sign waivers allowing their information to be kept.
Critics say people are being forced to give up too much personal information. But Lawrence Hornak, the co-director of the research center at West Virginia University, said it could actually enhance people’s privacy. “It allows you to project your identity as being you,” said Hornak. “And it allows people to avoid identity theft, things of that nature.”
There remains the question of how reliable these new biometric technologies will be.
A 2006 German study looking at facial recognition in a crowded train station found successful matches could be made 60 percent of the time during the day. But when lighting conditions worsened at night, the results shrank to a success rate of 10 to 20 percent. As work on these technologies continues, researchers are quick to admit what’s proven to be the most accurate so far. “Iris technology is perceived today, together with fingerprints, to be the most accurate,” said Cukic. But in the future all kinds of methods may be employed. Some researchers are looking at the way people walk as a possible additional means of identification.
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Maricopa County’s 4th Avenue Jail has begun using iris scanning ID techniques, but not on the inmates:
In an effort to keep close tabs on some of its employees with high level security clearance, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has placed iris scanners in some critical locations inside the jail. “This is to get away from keys, get away from swipe-cards that are easily misplaced or lost,” said Deputy Doug Matteson … Matteson said the iris scans will soon act as time cards, able to track the moment a jail employee clocks into work. We know who is on duty and who is off duty, and we’re going to advance the system in the near future,” Matteson said.
The Fourth Avenue Jail is the primary booking and transition center for the County in Arizona, seeing some 6,000 to 8,000 inmates each month. See the full story from KNXV-TV in Phoenix.
A history of growth in the West Virginia corrections system. There are plans afoot to share biometric data around the world. Washington County MN receives grant to continue juvenile program. Brown County claims Wisconsin shortchanged the county by more than $100,000 on inmate fees. Cumberland County PA Prison Board approves $10.7m expansion.
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From WVEC.com:
Norfolk jails are taking a gadget used often in television and movies and applying it to the real world, keeping prisoners from escaping.
A scanner will read the inmates’ eyes and the computer will memorize their information. Then, when someone goes in or out, officials will know who it is without a shadow of a doubt. “The eye is just like a fingerprint,” said Major Mike O’Toole of the Norfolk Sheriff’s Department. “Everybody has an individual eye that’s different.”
The Norfolk Sheriff’s Department spent $30,000 to buy the iris scanning system. “We felt it was the leading technology and most accurate,” said O’Toole. “I think it’s an excellent investment.” Right now, deputies must rely on questions and photos to properly identify the 30,000 inmates. “Pictures are sometimes a problem because a person’s locked up for a long time, and their physical appearance can change,” said O’Toole.
Officials learned that lesson the hard way back in 2006, when one inmate posed as another and escaped. Deputies caught him just a few hours later, but now the jail isn’t taking any chances. “Most large jails have a problem with it, and that’s why we’re looking at this technology.” Soon, cameras will be clicking on corneas every day in Norfolk like they used to only in the movies. The Sheriff’s Department hopes to have the new system up and running by the end of next month.
A growing number of sheriff’s departments are usi9ng irtis scanning technology to identify inmates, sex offenders, and many others.
More than 2,100 departments in 27 states are taking digital pictures of eyes and storing the information in databases that can be searched later to identify a missing person or someone who uses a fake name … At least 10 metro areas are doing scans of criminals to identify them should another crime occur or to be sure the right inmate is released. “This is the wave of the future. This will become as common as fingerprinting,” says Sheriff Greg Solano of Santa Fe County, N.M.
Read more at USA Today.