FBI wants palm prints, eye scans, tattoo mapping in mammoth database

The FBI is gearing up to create a massive computer database of people’s physical characteristics, all part of an effort the bureau says better identify criminals and terrorists. The FBI’s plan causes consternation among privacy advocates — what one civil liberties expert says should concern all Americans. The bureau is expected to announce in coming days the awarding of a $1 billion, ten-year contract to help create the database which will compile an array of biometric information — from palm prints to eye scans. Kimberly Del Greco, the FBI’s Biometric Services section chief, said adding to the database is “important to protect the borders to keep the terrorists out, protect our citizens, our neighbors, our children so they can have good jobs, and have a safe country to live in” (see 16 January 2008 HSDW story)

Privacy experts are worried. “It’s the beginning of the surveillance society where you can be tracked anywhere, any time and all your movements, and eventually all your activities will be tracked and noted and correlated,” said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Technology and Liberty Project. The FBI already has fifty-five million sets of fingerprints on file. In coming years, the bureau wants to compare palm prints, scars and tattoos, iris eye patterns, and facial shapes. The idea is to combine various pieces of biometric information to positively identify a potential suspect.

Much will depend on how quickly technology is perfected, according to Thomas Bush, the FBI official in charge of the Clarksburg, West Virginia, facility where the FBI houses its current fingerprint database. “Fingerprints will still be the big player,” Thomas Bush, assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division, told CNN. He added, though, tht “Whatever the biometric that comes down the road, we need to be able to plug that in and play.” First up, he said, are palm prints. The FBI has already begun collecting images and hopes to soon use these as an additional means of making identifications. Countries that are already using such images find 20 percent of their positive matches come from latent palm prints left at crime scenes, the FBI’s Bush said. The FBI has also started collecting mug shots and pictures of scars and tattoos. These images are being stored for now as the technology is fine-tuned. All of the FBI’s biometric data is stored on computers