Friend or foe? Defense Department under pressure to share biometric data.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Biometrics - Cover story

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TAMPA, Fla. -- Within minutes of knocking down the door of a suspected bomb maker in Iraq, U.S. troops can fingerprint everyone they find inside, send the scans across a satellite rink, and find out if the subjects are suspected terrorists.

Military police in the Middle East who are manning checkpoints or sifting through job applicants for local hires can use the same technology.

Biometrics--the science of identifying a person through his unique body measurements such as fingerprints, iris scans, voice prints or even DNA--has come into its own. Operations in urban areas against enemies who don't wear uniforms make identifying friends and foes more important than ever.

Technologies that allow investigators to identify suspected terrorists have been sped into the field, but these efforts are not being well coordinated, and that can lead to critical information gaps, and so-called stovepipes, the common term for information and communication systems that cannot link to each other, experts at the Biometrics Consortium conference said.

There are signs that progress is being made, government officials said. A presidential directive that was signed last year will help federal agencies sort out who does what in terms of identity management. The Naval Post Graduate School announced that it will begin a master's level program in identity management. And Customs and Border

Protection is now collecting 10 fingerprints from visitors arriving from foreign countries.

But is all this enough?

"We are still in the throes of a paradigm shift," said Donald Loren, deputy assistant secretary of defense for homeland security integration.

When he walks into the Pentagon, he still flashes an ID badge with a mug shot.

"That's identification. That's not identity management," he said.

Biometrics is the science behind the larger issue of "identity management." Collecting a fingerprint is fine, but how should the government store, secure and share--when necessary--the biometric data it collects?

Along with the military services, entities such as the State Department, the Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, the Department of Justice and its law enforcement arms such as the FBI--are involved in collecting biometric data.

"The Defense Department is still in the discovery phase of interagency, international and civil support activities" when it comes to biometrics and identity management, said Loren.

"We have to continue to work out the problems," he...