[Infowarrior] - FBI wants palm prints, eye scans, tattoo mapping

[Richard Forno]

FBI wants palm prints, eye scans, tattoo mapping

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/02/04/fbi.biometrics/

>From Kelli Arena and Carol Cratty
CNN

CLARKSBURG, West Virginia (CNN) -- 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.

But it's an issue that raises major privacy concerns -- what one civil
liberties expert says should concern all Americans.

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."

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.

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. VideoWatch
what the FBI hopes to gain »

"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 while law enforcement officials are excited about the possibilities of
these new technologies, privacy advocates are upset the FBI will be
collecting so much personal information.

"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. VideoWatch
concerns over more data collection »

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." VideoWatch
Hornak describe why he thinks it's a "privacy enhancer" »

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.

The FBI says it will protect all this personal data and only collect
information on criminals and those seeking sensitive jobs.

The ACLU's Steinhardt doesn't believe it will stop there.

"This had started out being a program to track or identify criminals," he
said. "Now we're talking about large swaths of the population -- workers,
volunteers in youth programs. Eventually, it's going to be everybody."

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