U.S. ramps up biometrics to ID Baghdad residents

American
soldiers are using digital eye scanners to take iris images of Baghdad residents then send these
images to the Defense Department’s Biometrics Fusion Center in West
Virginia. In the past, a census mission meant
that soldiers would dutifully jot down the names, ages, and addresses of
residents they encountered. On occasion, one or two of those thousands of names
would be entered into a larger list or included in a report. U.S. News’s
Alex Kingsbury writes that the once routine census patrols have now been formalized and augmented with
biometrics — typically including fingerprints, eye scans, and digital mug
shots. In the past three years, the army has created a vast classified database
holding the biometrics of more than 2.2 million people. Many in this database
of non-Americans are Iraqis — and some Afghans — who have been detained in
connection with the insurgency or were, for instance, issued microgrants for
their businesses. This kind of data gathering - mapping the social terrain — is
a key element in counterinsurgency efforts.

A report last year by the advisory Army Science
Board, citing incompatible and slow systems, found that biometrics efforts were
falling “far short of what our forces need.” Matching biometrics to
previously collected data can take hours or even days, a common gripe from
soldiers in the field who need real-time results. Currently, the hand-held scanners
(about 3,000 are in use) can store only several thousand “watch list”
files of wanted people and alert soldiers if one of those individuals is
scanned during a census patrol. “The technological hurdles have been
difficult, but we now have a standardized template for biometrics, which should
speed up the process,” says William Vickers, deputy director of the Army’s
Biometrics Task Force, based in an office building near the Pentagon.