Biometrics put new eye on terrorists

If there is one thing insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan do not like, it is being “BATized.” Using a biometric automated toolset American forces can now take scans of a person’s irises, as well as facial characteristics and fingerprints, allowing for a better and quicker system to identify and track potential enemy personnel. BAT for short, the system allows for the creation of individual “digital dossiers,” said Gary Jones, deputy chief of the Language and Technology Office at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, Intelligence Center. He added that improving technology is making systems more affordable and smaller. For a number of years, the Intelligence Center has been involved in finding new ways to use biometrics as a way to identify potential problem people and to share that information. Many people know fingerprints are the standard for identification, but iris scans are proving more accurate. Trouble is, the number of iris scans are few compared to the amount of fingerprints on record. One example: The FBI has 51 million sets of fingerprints. It will take some time before that many iris scans are available in a data base. “Iris recognition, by far, is the most efficient,” Jones said.

The only way an iris scan is not going to provide positive identification is if a person has been dead for more than fifteen minutes “or his eyeball was rolling down the hall,” Jones said. Facial characteristics are important, but they can be changed, and voice recognition is another area being pursued as an additional to BAT. Not too long ago systems were big and unwieldy and were not as mobile as now. With today’s technology, however, the size and weight of systems have been reduced, which means members of America’s armed forces are more willing to use them. Currently 735,000 detainees in Iraq have been entered into a BAT system that can be obtained quickly — even in the field, Jones said. The system provides an opportunity for a soldier to check to see if a person caused problems before or was a suspect but releasedd. An example Jones gave was checking people who are at a scene of an improvised explosive device incident. One person may not be in the system and may be let go, but sometime later is at the scene of another explosion and is BATized. On the second time, information from the previous incident appears, showing the person was at the earlier site. The end result is the individual is held for questioning, Jones said. “Later this war is going to end,” he said. When that happens, there will still be people who may want to harm the United States. Having quickly retrievable biometric information at hand if one of those people try to come to America or do harm to the country elsewhere helps so that “bad dog will not do us any harm,” Jones said.

Being small, portable and affordable, the GIs like the new biometric systems, which also are being used by military police, check point security guards, and base compound guards as a way to rapidly identify insurgents. The Language and Technology Office continues to look for additional systems that will provide other information to add to the BAT arsenal. When the office began a few years ago, there were three government employees and a few contractors. Now “we have three govs (government employees) and 60 contractors,” which shows the increased importance of biometrics, Jones said.