Biometrics help soldiers in Iraq

requires using three separate items to obtain biometrics from a person, which are now fed into a laptop. The HIIDE, which is a work in progress, puts capabilities to obtain information at the lowest Army level — the squad. The Army has been in the lead in pushing biometrics, and devices were ready to deploy when the United States attacked Iraq in 2003. The Marines, though, proved the BAT system as being important in processing captives. DeBolt said the Marines found out the Army was not going to use the BAT and asked to be allowed to. Because there was joint service involvement in its development, the request was approved. The Army officer who did not want to deploy the systems — eighteen of them — was of the opinion there was not enough time to integrate new automated equipment in the fight, she said. To this day, DeBolt said she did not think it was the right call.

The Marines became enamored by BAT, proving its worth. When preparing to leave Iraq, they wanted to know how much it cost so they could sell it to an Army Military Police unit that was working at the same prison in Iraq — Abu Ghraib. The request shocked her because the Marines were given the systems at no cost. The Marines said that by having the Army unit pay for it, the money could be used when the Marines returned to Iraq. Eighteen units were sold to the Army for about $5,000 each. Even though DeBolt did not think the Marine unit would be returning to Iraq that soon, she was proven wrong. The Marines spent $2.3 million for upgraded biometrics systems mostly developed by the Army. The Marines now consider them “battlefield systems.”

The Marines have used the system in clearing out troubled spots in Iraq, such as Fallajah, by taking biometrics of residents and setting up checkpoints, which people must use to go into the city, DeBolt said. The Marines also have used it to clear smaller villages, providing protection for residents of those communities.

The Marines use the expression “berming” for when they go in and clear out a community and then provide protection for the residents. This means they set up a barrier around a village and limit the entry and exit points. Using biometrics, they can determine who is and isn’t supposed to be in the area. While the Marines consider biometrics as a battlefield system, the Army considers it an operational system, DeBolt said. Biometrics systems are faster than green ledger books once used to annotate prisoners and others who could do harm, DeBolt added. The ledger books were used until the late 1990s.

Information inputted into the biometrics systems can be used, for example, if a bomb is set off in an area. DeBolt said people who were in the area are in the database, and it can show who may be involved in the incident. The systems create a “biometrics enabled watch list,” she said.

People released from custody after serving a sentence may attempt to return to their old ways, and having them listed helps keep track of their movements, DeBolt said. “We are releasing people in Iraq. We can’t lock up the whole world,” she said. The biometrics systems is finding one high value target a day, and between 5,000 and 7,000 people a day are being put into the systems, DeBolt said. Biometrics are critical to intelligence work, but care must taken that what is put into the systems are not shared with unauthorized people or agencies, DeBolt said. The future of biometrics will include putting more devices, such as voice recognition, that will help more precisely identify wanted people, DeBolt said. “Like I said, they can run, but they will not be able to hide,” she said.