Biometric ID and Immigration Reform
Datastrip Supplies Handheld Biometric to Techno Brain
August 20, 2010Contactless News - Datastrip has announced it has partnered with Tanzania-based information technology company Techno Brain to sell the EasyVerify mobile solution in the African market. The Easy Verify’s comes installed with contactless smart card and fingerprint reading capabilities and the option to expand into face and iris recognition.
L-1 Introduces New Biometric Device
July 15, 2010Third Factor - L-1 Identity Solutions has unveiled a new biometric device called the HIIDE 5. The HIIDE 5 is the next generation in their HIIDE device family which is a small and lightweight mobile option for enrolling or authenticating of one’s identity using biometrics in the field. Additionally, the new device is touted as a customizable option designed to be able to fit the needs of field operations in law enforcement homeland security, military operations and transportation security.
Some of the more notable changes from the previous HIIDE 4 model in the HIIDE 5 is that the iris, fingerprint and facial images U.S. Department of Defense templates are stored at one-tenth of the size of a standard image file allowing fro quicker transmitting of data. Other capabilities of the new device include built-in GPS, 802.11 wireless support, Bluetooth support, 3g and 4g support, WiFi support, Tactical Radio support and WiMax support
Military Using Biometrics to Categorize Afghans
August 16, 2010Third Factor - U.S. soldiers stationed in Afghanistan are depending on various biometric devices and the enrollment of Afghani citizens into their databases to better tell civilians from militants and other criminals in the area, according to a CJTF-101 article.
Among the biometrics the soldiers collect are all fingerprints, a facial scan and iris scans of each eye.
Samples aren’t just being collected from the individual’s or detainees being enrolled, however, as the soldiers are entering fingerprint information from various devices found to be involved with militants and entering those into the databases so that anyone later entered matching the collected information can be connected to the crime.
Military officials have reported on how such systems make their day-to-day lives much easier while deployed and will continue to do so as they reach towards their goal of enrolling a total of 1.65 million Afghanis.
SIA Defends Biometrics from Alaskan Bill
August 12, 2010Third Factor - The Security Industry Association (SIA), a member-based group that advocates on behalf of the security industry in the U.S., has publicly opposed a Bill in Alaska that restricts biometric technology in the state, according to a Security Info Watch article.
The bill, which was introduced by Alaskan State Senator Bill Wielechowski, both defines biometrics as fingerprints, headprints, voice, facial images, iris images and retinal images and, if passed, would require both informed and written consent from an individual prior to their biometric information being collected by any authority other than law enforcement or government authorities.
SIA’s letter that stated its opposition to the bill warned of unintended consequences that could leave places and businesses less secure especially where business to business transaction securing, banking security, access control and e-commerce were concerned. The SIA has successfully lobbied against other biometric technology limiting legislation in New Hampshire in early 2010.
From SecurityInfoWatch.com
August 12, 2010
The Security Industry Association has come out this week in opposition of an Alaska bill that would restrict the use of biometric technology.
According to the bill, which is sponsored by Alaska State Sen. Bill Wielechowski, a person must give "informed and written consent" before their biometric data could be obtained, excluding law enforcement and other state and federal authorities. The bill defines biometric data as fingerprints, handprints, voices, facial images, iris images, and retinal images.
In a statement, the SIA says the proposed legislation would adversely impact the use of biometrics for security purposes and noted in a letter to the bill’s sponsor that it would have "unintended negative consequences."
"Biometrics provide an effective measure against fraud and identity theft in applications as diverse as personal access to buildings/computers, banking security, business-to-business transactions and e-commerce," SIA CEO Richard Chace wrote in the letter.Similar legislation was defeated earlier this year in New Hampshire following lobbying efforts by the SIA.
SMARTRAC Ramps Up e-Passport Inlay Production
August 11, 2010Contactless News - SMARTRAC announced that production and shipment of its high security e-Passport inlays at its facility in Chanhassen, Minn. has surpassed the milestone of 1 million units in a single month.
In December 2009, production of RFID components from SMARTRAC’s Minnesota facility reached 500,000 inlays in one single month for the first time. Since then, the company has continuously expanded production capacity and workforce at the local subsidiary.
Deadlines, Risks and the Future of Electronic, Chip-based Biometric e-Passports
August 11, 2010Contactless News - Barry Kefauver has more than 30 years of government experience and has been instrumental in the development of electronic passport programs. Kefauver served as the deputy assistant secretary of state for Passport Services at the U.S. Department of State. He has chaired many international fora, including the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Work Group on New Technologies and the main committee of the International Organization on Standardization (ISO) assisting ICAO in drafting the biometric passport guidelines.
Kefauver is principal at the consulting firm, Falls Hills Associates LLC. and has served as adjunct professor at the University of Mary Washington, teaching international business.
Kefauver was kind enough to answer a series of questions for re:ID readers on the latest with the electronic passport programs.
Q: What’s the state of e-passport issuance around the world?
First, I would like to clarify the ICAO “deadlines” that have been the subjects of some confusion. The first deadline is that which has just passed; that is, as of April 1, 2010, all countries must have begun to issue Machine Readable Passports (MRP). The second deadline, and clearly related to the first, is that all issued non-Machine Readable Passports must expire before November 24, 2015. Note that neither of these deadlines requires that biometric or e-passports must be issued at all. The deadlines are focused solely on machine readability on an international and globally interoperable basis.
With respect to the status of passport issuance at the time of this writing, there are approximately 81 countries that are issuing electronic, chip-based biometric e-passports that are in compliance with ICAO requirements.
I say approximately because this number and the others that I will cite are based on the best data available from all of the best sources, but subject to change on a daily basis, generally increasing the number of issuing authorities employing e-passport technologies. Also, there are several countries that characterize their passports as e-passports that are NOT in compliance with one or more ICAO specifications. These are not included in the 81 noted earlier. If and when these are brought into compliance, they will be counted as well. There are an additional 27 countries that indicate they intend to issue e-passports yet within 2010.
On the other side of the equation, there are approximately–note that word again, for the same reasons–20 countries that are not issuing machine-readable passports in compliance with ICAO standards. Several of these passports that are not in compliance can be brought into compliance relatively easily and the countries have been notified as to the discrepancies.
Therefore, hopefully by the time this is published, this number will be diminished. In addition, at least eight countries are moving toward machine-readable passport issuance still to occur in 2010. In sum, of all of the ICAO 190 member state contracting parties, approximately 170 are now issuing traditional machine-readable passports or e-passport issuance in accordance with ICAO standards.
Q: What was the risk that ICAO took on biometrics that paid off?
In the early days when the quest was colloquially called “Co-Existing Technologies,” the goal was primarily to link the bearer with the document in a way that would enhance the ability of the human inspection process through the use of machine-assisted identity confirmation.
Unknowns of many kinds, such as new technologies, contactless chips in a paper substrate, interoperability, the infancy of biometrics, untested public perception, political concerns, resource requirements, and others, swirled about as work was being carried out.
Very fundamental questions, some of which had never been asked, most of which had no clear answers, abounded. And of course, those questions that continued to arise as work went on, those that we didn’t even know existed until they raised their ugly heads, were the most vexing.
Interesting that we assumed that the most difficult areas of deployment would involve the application of biometrics, frankly the reason why the chip’s data carrying capability had been chosen in the first place. After all, we had the maturity and deployment experience of ISO/IEC 14443 that would serve as our turn-by-turn deployment GPS.
Wrong. In addition to having to rewrite 14443 to accommodate the travel document functionality, we also had to define de novo ways in which to test the chips for both performance as well as reliability and durability, encountering a number of new-science learnings regarding the behavior–and vulnerability–of radio frequency chip technology.
So the risks facing ICAO were of several differing types, each one complementing and feeding on the others. There were the kinds of risks that we knew about such as the untried and essentially untested field performance of biometrics on the kind of global scale that worldwide passport issuance required. And then there were the intangible perceived risks that began to become clearer and more daunting, the kinds associated with ways in which to insure privacy and data integrity, while capitalizing on the operational virtues of the contactless chip that had formed the basis for its selection in the first place.
The use of biometrics, especially the use of facial recognition as chosen by ICAO as THE globally interoperable technology, was viewed quite skeptically and by one observer I recall, characterizing biometrics as “the new snake oil.” Certainly the body of knowledge that had been assembled when ICAO was fully committed to biometrics was sparse. As well, it was the ICAO/travel document application that drove identity management initiatives and had substantial impact on the enhancement and improvements of biometrics as well as the attending enabling technologies.
These kinds of risks are often the companions of pioneering efforts in many efforts to effect change. However, this work was being carried out on a global and worldwide scale and demanded that international and multilateral cooperation drive each and every decision and direction, otherwise that all-critical global interoperability would be left to wave aimlessly in the breeze.
The stakes were very high and very visible. So the risks, known and unknown, were dealt with as they were encountered and they were addressed in ways of global collegiality, a sense of togetherness that has characterized the MRTD programs. While there is always room for improvement, I think the payoff has been in confronting these risks head on, addressing them as effectively as humanly possible and being strengthened by having done so; we now have the most secure passport the world has ever known...
Q: What’s the status of deploying inspection systems for e-passport around the world?
There is no question that the deployment of machine-readable passports and e-passport issuing programs has proceeded with somewhat greater speed and broader impact than the reading and inspection tools. This is to be expected and resembles the time lag that accompanied the initial wave of machine-readable passports and their inspection and reading... So, with the word “approximately” modifying each of these data, the following provides a snapshot of where things stand at the moment.
- 16 countries are currently reading and “using” the biographical and biometric data stored on the chip
- 53 countries are using biometrics in some form for border management purposes (primarily face and finger or a combination of those two, but a couple using iris)
- All 81 countries that issue e-passports are, of course, capturing biometric data in those chips (36 facial image, 45 both face and fingerprint)
- 16 countries currently participate in the ICAO Public Key Directory (PKD), the organization that handles the exchange of PKI certificates among countries.
Q: Any prediction on what ICAO may be looking for in its next e-passport request for information?
The ICAO Request For Information process has been functioning on a roughly three-year basis since 1995. The intent of the RFI has been to give governments an opportunity to formally engage in a dialogue with industry in terms of more clearly and systematically identifying longer term needs, directions and priorities...
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