FBI building new biometrics system that will include DNA records, 3-D facial imaging, palm prints and voice scans

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The FBI plans to migrate from its IAFIS fingerprint database to a new biometrics system that will include DNA records, 3-D facial imaging, palm prints and voice scans that blows away fingerprinting.

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TAMPA – The Federal Bureau of Investigation is expanding beyond its traditional fingerprint-focused collection practices to develop a new biometrics system that will include DNA records, 3-D facial imaging, palm prints and voice scans, blended to create what’s known as “multi-modal biometrics.”

How the Defense Department might institutionalize war-time biometrics

“The FBI today is announcing a rapid DNA initiative,” said Louis Grever, executive assistant director of the FBI’s science and technology branch, during his keynote presentation at the Biometric Consortium Conference in Tampa.

The FBI plans to begin migrating from its IAFIS database, established in the mid-1990s to hold its vast fingerprint data, to a next-generation system that’s expected to be in prototype early next year. This multi-modal NGI biometrics database system will hold DNA records and more.

Read moreFBI building new biometrics system that will include DNA records, 3-D facial imaging, palm prints and voice scans

UK: Police told to ignore European court of human rights ruling over DNA database

Chief constables across England and Wales have been told to ignore a landmark ruling by the European court of human rights and carry on adding the DNA profiles of tens of thousands of innocent people to a national DNA database.

Senior police officers have also been “strongly advised” that it is “vitally important” that they resist individual requests based on the Strasbourg ruling to remove DNA profiles from the national database in cases such as wrongful arrest, mistaken identity, or where no crime has been committed.

European human rights judges ruled last December in the S and Marper case that the blanket and indiscriminate retention of the DNA profiles and fingerprints of 850,000 people arrested but never convicted of any offence amounts to an unlawful breach of their rights.

Britain already has the largest police national DNA database in the world, with 5.8m profiles, including one in three of all young black males. Thousands more are being added each week.

So far the Home Office has responded to the judgment by proposing a controversial package to keep DNA profiles of the innocent, depending on the seriousness of the offence. The official consultation period ended today. for six to 12 years

Read moreUK: Police told to ignore European court of human rights ruling over DNA database

Britain dropped plans for compulsory ID cards

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File photo showing Home Secretary Jacqui Smith holding a sample identity card at a news conference in London September 25, 2008. (REUTERS)

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain said on Tuesday it was dropping plans to bring in compulsory biometric identity cards for airport workers and that the multi-billion pound scheme would remain voluntary for all Britons.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson said the government was going ahead with the introduction of the 30 pound cards, which contain personal details, fingerprints and a facial image, but ruled out making them compulsory.

Civil rights campaigners and opposition politicians have long opposed the project, saying it was unnecessary, expensive and an intrusion into private life.

Read moreBritain dropped plans for compulsory ID cards

UK colleges to fingerprint every student using US army scanners

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Clocking in: student Sabrina Nurkoo scans her fingerprint in a lecture at the London School of Commerce

Thousands of foreign students in London are being fingerprinted before classes in a clampdown on illegal immigration.

The London School of Commerce is using US army scanners to record the details of every student on campus and is threatening to report truants to the Home Office.

Managers have ordered the college’s 3,500 students to clock in to lectures with a print from their left and right forefinger or risk being thrown out.

There is growing concern that illegal immigrants exploit private colleges as a backdoor route into Britain, with students using them to secure visas.

Home Office officials also fear they could be targeted by terrorists – 10 men arrested over a suspected bomb plot in Manchester in April were registered as students.

LSC manager Rajiv Gupta said the fingerprint system was crucial. “We want bona fide students – not people who can’t be bothered or are abusing the system. If they are mucking around we don’t want them,” he said.

“If a student misses three sessions we will send them a letter and put them on probation. If things don’t improve we will terminate [their position] and inform the Home Office.”

Read moreUK colleges to fingerprint every student using US army scanners

Why are we fingerprinting children?

“It’s odd that this drive towards fingerprinting children coincides with the government’s keenness to expand the national DNA database – we already have one of the largest in the world – with more than four million people on file, including nearly 1.1 million children.”

“Odd too that VeriCool is reported to be part of Anteon, an American company that is responsible for the training of interrogators at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib.”


Schools claim it cuts costs and time – but the civil liberties implications are vast
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As voters express concern about surveillance technology, is it becoming second nature to the Facebook generation – used to publishing intimate details of their private lives on the worldwide web – who, in later life, may be less vociferous in their opposition to such schemes?

An increasing number of today’s schoolchildren are forgoing the humiliating daily name call of registration, and are instead having to “fingerswipe” in and out of class, or to give it its proper name: biometric registration. According to campaign group LeaveThemKidsAlone, schools have fingerprinted more than two million children this way, sometimes even without their parents’ consent. A statement on its website claims: “It’s part of an enormous softening-up exercise, targeting society’s most impressionable, so they’ll accept cradle-to-grave state snooping and control.”

Read moreWhy are we fingerprinting children?

Mexico to fingerprint all mobile phone users

Just think for a moment what the criminals would have to do, to get their hands on a ‘safe’ mobile phone. They will not stop being criminals and go to work (if there is any left), because of this database. This will actually make things even worse.

“The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either.” – Benjamin Franklin


Mexico will start a national register of mobile phone users that will include fingerprinting all customers in an effort to catch criminals who use the devices to extort money and negotiate kidnapping ransoms.

Under a new law published on Monday and due to be in force in April, mobile phone companies will have a year to build up a database of their clients, complete with fingerprints. The idea would be to match calls and messages to the phones’ owners.

Hundreds of people are kidnapped in Mexico every year and the number of victims is rising sharply as drug gangs, under pressure from an army crackdown, seek new income.

Politicians who pushed the bill through Congress last year say there are around 700 criminal bands in Mexico, some of them operating from prison cells, that use cell phones to extract extortion and kidnap ransom payments.

Read moreMexico to fingerprint all mobile phone users

Police will use new device to take fingerprints in street

Civil rights campaigners say images must not be added to databases


Photograph: Roger Tooth

Every police force in the UK is to be equipped with mobile fingerprint scanners – handheld devices that allow police to carry out identity checks on people in the street.

The new technology, which ultimately may be able to receive pictures of suspects, is likely to be in widespread use within 18 months. Tens of thousands of sets – as compact as BlackBerry smartphones – are expected to be distributed.

The police claim the scheme, called Project Midas, will transform the speed of criminal investigations. A similar, heavier machine has been tested during limited trials with motorway patrols.

To address fears about mass surveillance and random searches, the police insist fingerprints taken by the scanners will not be stored or added to databases.

Liberty, the civil rights group, cautioned that the law required fingerprints taken in such circumstances to be deleted after use. Gareth Crossman, Liberty’s policy director, said: “Saving time with new technology could help police performance but officers must make absolutely certain that they take fingerprints only when they suspect an individual of an offence and can’t establish his identity.”

Read morePolice will use new device to take fingerprints in street

Shoppers to use fingerprints or eye scans to pay for goods


Barclaycard has announced it is investing a seven-figure sum in “contactless payment” technology Photo: Getty Images

The futuristic systems, like those used by Tom Cruise in the science fiction film Minority Report, are being developed by scientists for Barclaycard.

The company has announced it is investing a seven-figure sum in “contactless payment” technology.

This allows customers to use everyday items they carry around with them – such as mobile phones, key fobs or even their eyes or fingerprints – to make payments.

It means shoppers will no longer have to rely on cards.

Barclaycard, which is part of Barclays, has already introduced a new-style cash machine in the United Arab Emirates enabling people to use their fingerprints to withdraw money and shoppers in the UK may soon be able to use the same technology.

Read moreShoppers to use fingerprints or eye scans to pay for goods

Eye scans, fingerprints to control NZ borders

Border control staff will be able to use iris scans and finger printing to check passengers’ identities under major changes to New Zealand immigration rules.

Despite criticism from Amnesty International at the level of secrecy permitted, the changes look set to become law, with the National Party pledging its support.

Read moreEye scans, fingerprints to control NZ borders

Chertoff Says Fingerprints Aren’t ‘Personal Data’

Our guest blogger, Peter Swire, is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and served as the Clinton Administration’s Chief Counselor for Privacy.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has badly stumbled in discussing the Bush administration’s push to create stricter identity systems. Chertoff was recently in Canada discussing, among other topics, the so-called “Server in the Sky” program to share fingerprint databases among the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia.

In a recent briefing with Canadian press (which has yet to be picked up in the U.S.), Chertoff made the startling statement that fingerprints are “not particularly private”:

QUESTION: Some are raising that the privacy aspects of this thing, you know, sharing of that kind of data, very personal data, among four countries is quite a scary thing.

SECRETARY CHERTOFF: Well, first of all, a fingerprint is hardly personal data because you leave it on glasses and silverware and articles all over the world, they’re like footprints. They’re not particularly private.

Many of us should rightfully be surprised that our fingerprints aren’t considered “personal data” by the head of DHS. Even more importantly, DHS itself disagrees. In its definition of “personally identifiable information” — the information that triggers a Privacy Impact Assessment when used by government — the Department specifically lists: “biometric identifiers (e.g., fingerprints).”

Chertoff’s comments have drawn sharp criticism from Jennifer Stoddart, the Canadian official in charge of privacy issues. “Fingerprints constitute extremely personal information for which there is clearly a high expectation of privacy,” Stoddart said.

There are compelling reasons to treat fingerprints as “extremely personal information.” The strongest reason is that fingerprints, if not used carefully, will become the biggest source of identity theft. Fingerprints shared in databases all over the world won’t stay secret for long, and identity thieves will take advantage.

A quick web search on “fake fingerprints” turns up cheap and easy methods for do-it-at-home fake fingerprints. As discussed by noted security expert Bruce Schneier, one technique is available for under $10. It was tried “against eleven commercially available fingerprint biometric systems, and was able to reliably fool all of them.” Secretary Chertoff either doesn’t know about these clear results or chooses to ignore them. He said in Canada: “It’s very difficult to fake a fingerprint.”

Chertoff’s argument about leaving fingerprints lying around on “glasses and silverware” is also beside the point. Today, we leave our Social Security numbers lying around with every employer and numerous others. Yet the fact that SSNs (or fingerprints) are widely known exposes us to risk.

There have been numerous questions raised about how this Administration is treating our personal information. Secretary Chertoff’s comments show a new reason to worry — they don’t think it’s “personal” at all.

Peter Swire

Source: thinkprogress.org

U.S. to Expand Collection Of Crime Suspects’ DNA

Policy Adds People Arrested but Not Convicted

The U.S. government will soon begin collecting DNA samples from all citizens arrested in connection with any federal crime and from many immigrants detained by federal authorities, adding genetic identifiers from more than 1 million individuals a year to the swiftly growing federal law enforcement DNA database.

The policy will substantially expand the current practice of routinely collecting DNA samples from only those convicted of federal crimes, and it will build on a growing policy among states to collect DNA from many people who are arrested. Thirteen states do so now and turn their data over to the federal government.

The initiative, to be published as a proposed rule in the Federal Register in coming days, reflects a congressional directive that DNA from arrestees be collected to help catch a range of domestic criminals. But it also requires, for the first time, the collection of DNA samples from people other than U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents who are detained by U.S. authorities.

Although fingerprints have long been collected for virtually every arrestee, privacy advocates say the new policy expands the DNA database, run by the FBI, beyond its initial aim of storing information on the perpetrators of violent crimes.

They also worry that people could be detained erroneously and swept into the database without cause, and that DNA samples from those who are never convicted of a crime, because of acquittal or a withdrawal of charges, might nonetheless be permanently retained by the FBI.

“Innocent people don’t belong in a so-called criminal database,” said Tania Simoncelli, science adviser for the American Civil Liberties Union. “We’re crossing a line.”

Read moreU.S. to Expand Collection Of Crime Suspects’ DNA

U.S. increases fingerprints IDs at airports

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – International visitors flying into New York now face being identified by all ten fingerprints, part of a heightened security system aimed at identifying potential terror suspects and visa fraud, officials said on Tuesday.

The upgraded system, part of the U.S. government’s Homeland Security program and its war on terror, increases the chances of catching illegal or potentially dangerous entrants into the country, officials said at a media briefing at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Tuesday.

The system expands the digital fingerprinting of international visitors to ten fingers from two.

Read moreU.S. increases fingerprints IDs at airports

Put young children on DNA list, urge police

Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life, according to Britain’s most senior police forensics expert.Gary Pugh, director of forensic sciences at Scotland Yard and the new DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said a debate was needed on how far Britain should go in identifying potential offenders, given that some experts believe it is possible to identify future offending traits in children as young as five.

Read morePut young children on DNA list, urge police