Pakistan deploys biometrics to stop terrorist traffic into Afghanistan

In a recent conversation with the spokesman for the Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington, we were surprised to learn that he was not a Muslim or an Afghani but in fact what we would call “a nice Jewish boy.” How did he get the job? He simply answered an advertisement in the newspaper. Anyway, we digress. During the conversation, we asked him if there was any market for biometrics in Afghanistan. Perhaps, we wondered, the government uses fingerprint scanners to access critical government buildings? His response was unsatisfying: he laughed at us and told us the Afghani government was more focused on the ‘bio’ than the ‘metrics’ — keeping its representatives alive.

We hope to look into the Afghani market soon, but the reason we bring this up is because Afghanistan’s next-door neighbor and rival Pakistan has begun using biometrics, and they are using it for the explicit purpose of keeping out Afghani refugees. Situated at a major border crossing between southern Afghanistan and Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan province, the system — whose manufacturer was not available at press time — offers a choice of fingerprint, retina, or facial scanning for those crossing the border into Afghanistan. “This is a step that we have taken to stop terrorism and to stop any illegal movement,” said a Pakistani government official.

Pakistan has come under intense criticism for permitting Taliban militants to hide in Pakistan before sneaking into Afghanistan to commit attacks. The system is not likely to stop this, but it does show that the Pakistani government is sensitive to criticism, and it does show that there is a market, however limited, for biometrics in some of the poorest regions of the world.

-read more in Matiullah Achakzai’s Canadian Press report