FBI’s Next-Gen ID Databank to Store Face Scans—A Good Idea?

[Anonymous]

FBI's Next-Gen ID Databank to Store Face Scans—A Good Idea?

Popular Mechanics
By Erik Sofge

Published on: June 30, 2008

Lockheed Martin is building a massive digital warehouse of criminal information, set to bring facial recognition and eye scans to local law enforcement within 10 years. The FBI may use biometric technology to bolster mug shots, fingerprints and DNA to catch crooks—but privacy advocates say there's reason for law-abiding citizens to worry.
The FBI has already begun gathering iris scans, and says it will need to expand its photograph database to ramp up inputs for the NGI system—growth that "could be the basis for our facial recognition," says an agency official.
Ten years ago, if a police department wanted to run a check on a suspect's fingerprints, someone had to mail an ink-splotched card to the FBI. The agency would then check it by hand against millions of other index cards, and it could take as long as two months for a match to return. Today, the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System processes around 150,000 sets of prints per day and can respond to a request in as little as 15 minutes.

But a decade from now, fingerprints could be as quaint as the index cards on which they were once stored. The FBI's Next Generation Identification (NGI) system, which could cost as much as $1 billion over its 10-year life cycle, will create an unprecedented database of biometric markers, such as facial images and iris scans. For criminal investigators, NGI could be as useful as DNA some day—a distinctive scar or a lopsided jaw line could mean the difference between a cold case and closed one. And for privacy watchdogs, it's a duel threat—seen as a step toward a police state, and a gold mine of personal data waiting to be plundered by cybercriminals.

For now, NGI is barely more than a concept. Lockheed Martin was awarded a multiyear contract in February to develop the system, and the company is currently conducting a trade study to determine what sort of biometric technologies should be incorporated into it. Lockheed isn't building the various scanners that police will be using to collect data, but rather is determining which ones will be compatible. "The trade study we're doing is for the matching algorithm—the guts of NGI," says Barbara Humpton, the company's project manager for NGI. "Lockheed does not build [data] capture devices or matching algorithms, per se. And capture devices are actually outside of the bounds of NGI. Those would be managed by individual agencies. NGI is about setting up a database and standards—the format for how things come into the system."

NGI will involve some hardware, such as a massive amount of data storage for the various high-resolution images of faces or irises that could become part of the system. Like the FBI's current fingerprint system, NGI will be software-based, providing data to whichever agency or police department has the compatible biometric collection gear. Until Lockheed's trade study is finished, there's no telling which particular devices will be folded into the project. And neither Lockheed nor the FBI will discuss the anticipated amount of storage, or other hard numbers, such as how fast the system could return results.

The FBI has confirmed that, along with adding palm prints to its existing "ten-print" records, the bureau will have to expand its photo repository. "That could be the basis for our facial recognition," says Thomas Bush, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division. "And it's not a true biometric [marker], but scars and tattoos, we want to be able to search those nationwide." Some of that information could come from prisons, where scar and tattoo databases have become increasingly common. But for accurate facial recognition, mug shots aren't the best source of data. Agencies would likely have to start taking photos of suspects from more angles, and at relatively high resolutions.

According to the FBI's Bush, some departments have already begun collecting iris scans, in anticipation of a searchable national or even local database. And Lockheed is hoping to leverage existing biometric technology (such as eye scanners that use patterns in the iris to provide identification and control access to some corporate facilities), as well as research being conducted by other organizations. "The Bureau doesn't really have any research dollars," Bush says. "We hope to change that, and get some, but most of our efforts would be toward leveraging research from other agencies, the Department of Defense and the academic world. So we'll take advantage of what little dollars we have, and try to force multiply."

Digital rights advocates such as the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the ACLU have said that the NGI technology is not far enough along to begin implementation, and that sharing vast amounts of biometric data could lead to inaccuracies. Lockheed and the FBI, however, do not claim that the system will harvest personal information from existing commercial biometric databases, or capture information without the subject's knowledge.

"We aren't going to start collecting irises from everyone and their brother," Bush says. "We adhere to very strict privacy guidelines. We're taking more biometrics from the same people we were always authorized to take fingerprints from." Any new images or scans will have to be collected by individual law enforcement agencies and then integrated into the NGI system. As for security concerns, the FBI says its fingerprint database has never been hacked. So while the addition of new kinds of data flowing between agencies—both in the United States and abroad, since the Bureau hopes to exchange data with other nations—could create new opportunities for hackers, there's little precedent for such breaches.

NGI could start producing results in 2010, which is when the FBI wants to have its improved print-scanning capabilities up and running. Other features will be added throughout the project's life span, and by 2018, the Bureau will presumably start working on the next generation of its steadily expanding identification database. In the meantime, biometric technology is exploding in the commercial sector, with students paying for lunch with a finger swipe and Japanese cellphones scanning their owners' eyes to initiate secure transactions. "People are beginning to accept that biometrics might be their best protection," Humpton says. Of course, that depends which side of the law you're on.

Source: http://dprogram.wordpress.com/2008/07/0 ... ris-scans/

[Anonymous]

In the meantime, biometric technology is exploding in the commercial sector, with students paying for lunch with a finger swipe and Japanese cellphones scanning their owners' eyes to initiate secure transactions. "People are beginning to accept that biometrics might be their best protection," Humpton says. Of course, that depends which side of the law you're on

Yes, fingerprint scanning is my best protection when I need to pay for a lunch.  What would I do without my trusted fingerprint scanner... why ... I couldn't use money to pay, how ridiculous is that notion!

And don't forget the cellphones; my cellphone is my life, I need it protected from all those evil crooks who want to take my cell phone and find out who my contacts are so they can telemarket, prank call, and threaten them.  How grateful I am for secure cellphone security!

Indeed, the great savior for mankind is biometrics, and if you don't like it like my buddies at Popular Mechanics said, then you are on the other side of the law and that means you are a criminal!  We are going to get you in the end you evil criminals!


Isn't it great how Popular Mechanics is once again working with the establishment (dare I submit Homeland Security?) to promote biometric shite to the children of the world?  I sure feel happy that kids are being further indoctrinated to relieve themselves of their rights.  !#$@*

[sullivan]

it's a duel threat

This misspelling is indicative of the approach to quality control at Popular Mechanics.  Unless someone is challenging privacy advocates to a duel, of course.
What a bunch of freakin' illiterate morons.