New Home for Biometrics
PLANNED CREATION OF THE BIOMETRICS DEFENSE AGENCY REFLECTS EXPANDING IMPORTANCE OF THE TECHNOLOGY WITHIN THE MILITARY.
As the impact of biometrics technology on the Department of Defense has increased, the year-old Biometrics Task Force (BTF) has outgrown its mission and organizational home. As a result, officials have decided to create an ongoing entity, known as the Biometrics Defense Agency (BDA), with an expanded area of responsibility covering use of the technology in all aspects of military operations.
“The task force was set up to get a capability quickly. We’ve achieved our goal. Now we’re taking it a step further to institutionalize it across the DoD without losing momentum,” said Dr. Myra Gray, director of the Biometrics Task Force. “Although it is not yet finalized, we have determined that we will be called the Biometrics Defense Agency.”
Two actions earlier this year paved the way toward establishing the BTF as a program of record and an institution tasked with developing biometrics more broadly for identity management. In April, the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Defense Science Board delivered a final report concluding that the use of biometrics is “vitally important to the success of many missions within the DoD.”
The Task Force on the Defense Biometrics Program outlined 46 recommendations in its report and urged the OSD to develop planning for the use of biometrics in the broader scope of identity management at the earliest opportunity.
By June, the war supplemental bill had provided $320 million to integrate existing, disparate biometrics tools and databases and to expand the integrated capability across DoD.
Biometrics includes the use of fingerprints, iris patterns, face, palm and DNA information not just to determine, but to confirm, a person’s identity. “My CAC card says who I am, but it doesn’t prove who I am,” Gray pointed out.
To confirm identity, the services and various DoD agencies are using a wide range of biometric methodologies. That diversity increases effectiveness, analysts contend.
“We are multi-modal, meaning we don’t rely on one thing. Any biometric can be spoofed, but the use of multiple biometrics significantly decreases spoofing,” said Gray. “When we have to look at whether the biometric is a living finger or eyeball or a dead one, we have the technology today to prove whether it’s dead or alive.”
The BTF will standardize and integrate biometrics into an existing infrastructure connected to the Global Information Grid using standard data formats and upgrading to relational databases. This will improve upon the current ad hoc, disparate systems stored in spreadsheets.
“One of our missions is to provide the standards by which the biometrics community operates. We will develop policy to help guide the biometrics community and determine an acceptable timeframe for turning around an answer,” said Gray. “We want to strike a balance without degrading quality, using biometrics as an identifier but not as an inhibiter. In the process of information sharing, we have to be sensitive to privacy laws, cultural and security issues,” she stressed.
DoD has been using biometrics tools to control access to installations in Southwest Asia for several years, expanding the technology usage into law enforcement and forensics in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, in theater, biometrics collection can be used for population management to establish a census of regular citizens, or for identification on service members needing medical care, as well as to confirm or deny the identity of suspected terrorists.
OPERATIONAL FOCUS
The BTF answers to OSD Director of Defense Biometrics Thomas Dee. The Army, which was designated the executive agent for DoD biometrics, has restructured biometrics efforts in the past 18 months. In spring 2006, the BTF was called the Biometrics Management Office and, with the Biometrics Fusion Center (BFC), was organized under the Army G6, the service’s chief information officer.
The two groups were subsequently reorganized together under the Army G-3 (chief of operations), however, changing the name from the BMO to the current BTF, while leaving the BFC name the same.
The restructuring demonstrates how biometrics has evolved from a focus on information assurance under the G6 to a broader enabling capability. “We moved it from G6 to G3 to focus more on the war on terrorism and today’s urgent needs, to give it operational focus rather than a strict focus on information technology. Then it swung too far away from information assurance and we’re now in the process of correcting that to get the right balance across the entire spectrum of biometrics usage in the department,” said Gray. “The G3 has been very supportive of morphing into an agency.”
A new departmental directive, in creation for about a year and soon to be signed, mandates the scope and direction of the evolved and elevated biometrics efforts and explains who does what with biometrics in DoD. “Essentially, it outlines the functions and scope of all the different biometrics parties and tells the BTF and BFC how to operate,” Gray said.
Meanwhile, the Army has the responsibility to ensure that all joint and service biometrics interests are addressed. The BTF has service and agency liaisons as part of their team to ensure that all DoD biometric stakeholders are represented.
Like the Army, the Marine Corps utilizes biometrics to collect census data to manage populations, by building databases that distinguish between residents and nonresidents, for example. Marines also gather forensic evidence and develop intelligence data.
The Navy uses biometrics to identify persons of interest aboard commercial and foreign vessels. As part of Expanded Maritime Interception Operations (EMIO), fingerprints provide identification and prevent the use of false identity documents. The BTF worked with the Navy to develop the EMIO to identify biometrics collection equipment, develop data transmission standards and help in establishing procedures.
In addition, the EMIO is now adding wireless capability as part of its enhancements. Meanwhile, the Naval Innovation lab is deploying the Technical Biometrics Collection and Matching Device, a handheld unit that gathers iris scans, face images and 10 fingerprints.
The Air Force Communications Agency (AFCA) is the biometrics proponent within that service, which is now testing the Defense Biometric Identification System (DBIDS) Version 3.0 for the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) and is also testing DBIDS for compatibility at Hanscom AFB, Mass. The DBIDS was created by the DMDC.
As part of its mission to develop and field multiple modalities, the BTF is interested in solutions from a wide variety of companies. “DoD biometrics will never be a one-size fits all system. We are taking a multi-functional approach because we can’t predict the characteristics of every environment where we will need to use biometrics. And I don’t want to go down a path with a one-company solution, as it would increase cost, reduce innovation and hold us hostage. When there’s no competition, there’s no innovation,” Gray said.
“We are also looking into other modalities, as science fiction turns into fact, and some of them can be pretty far-reaching such as the vein readers in the hand, which are already commercially out, gait recognition, which is the way a person walks, and heart rate technology,” she added.
FUSION CENTER
The Biometrics Fusion Center is the technical subset of the BTF and operates the definitive DoD database for collected biometrics, called the Automated Biometrics Identification System (ABIS). The BFC also performs certification and compliance testing as well as research and development. Servicemembers in theater collect biometrics and e-mail them to the BFC, which checks them against the ABIS to confirm or deny identities.
ABIS was built to the FBI standard, the Next Generation Identification (NGI) system, which is part of Criminal Justice Information Services, in order to ensure data exchange between the two systems. NGC and a team of partner companies are currently building both the FBI’s NGI as well as the next generation ABIS so that the two will be compatible out of the box.
As part of the ABIS contract, L-1 Identity Solutions is providing a multimodal biometric identification system that will support up to 2.4 million finger, face, palm and iris records. The L-1 standards-based architecture is integrated with DoD’s service-oriented architecture and allows support for third party and inter-agency collection systems. An L-1 subsidiary, SecuriMetrics, is providing portable iris recognition and enrollment devices used with the Biometrics Automated Toolset (BAT).
ABIS is worth little without its collection systems, particularly the BAT, which is currently fielded by the Language Technology Office at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., and the Handheld Interagency Identity Detection System (HIIDE), fielded by the Army Space Program Office with G-2 oversight.
The BFC tested the BAT and the HIIDE tactical systems, which are used widely today, and developed the Biometric Identification System for Access (BISA) which is currently deployed at 10 installations in Iraq for secure base access.
As the mission of the BTF continues to evolve, the use of biometrics technology will likely expand from cross service to cross agency. Perhaps the most obvious is homeland security.
While there is currently no Homeland Security Presidential Directive-12 (HSPD- 12) plan to mandate the use of biometrics for networks or physical access, the BTF has been involved in rolling out the new HSPD-12 compliant Personal Identity Verification Common Access Card. The BTF is leading a tiger team of members from different specialties, in conjunction with the Defense Manpower Data Center, to assist in making recommendations for meeting HSPD-12 requirements. The BTF is also participating in an effort to standardize the fingerprint process.
In addition, the BTF has developed International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) 378 for fingerprint minutiae, INCITS 381 for fingerprint image, and INCITS 398 for a common biometrics exchange format framework, through the National Biometrics Standards Body that pertains to HSPD-12.
The BTF also developed American National Standards Institute and National Institute of Standards and Technology standards pertaining to HSPD-12. However, that is the extent of the BTF’s involvement in HSPD-12, as there is no HSPD-12 requirement mandating crossagency biometrics usage for networks or physical access, according to a BTF spokesman. ♦
