FBI building system that blows away fingerprinting

[Eugen Leitl]

http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=E7DD109B-1A64-67EA-E4D0CD2824087487

FBI building system that blows away fingerprinting

Ellen Messmer

23.09.2009 kl 16:43 | IDG News Service

The FBI plans to migrate from its IAFIS fingerprint database to a new
biometrics system that will include DNA records, 3-D facial imaging, palm
prints and voice scans.

TAMPA b The Federal Bureau of Investigation is expanding beyond its
traditional fingerprint-focused collection practices to develop a new
biometrics system that will include DNA records, 3-D facial imaging, palm
prints and voice scans, blended to create what's known as "multi-modal
biometrics."

"The FBI today is announcing a rapid DNA initiative," said Louis Grever,
executive assistant director of the FBI's science and technology branch,
during his keynote presentation at the Biometric Consortium Conference in
Tampa.

The FBI plans to begin migrating from its IAFIS database, established in the
mid-1990s to hold its vast fingerprint data, to a next-generation system
that's expected to be in prototype early next year. This multi-modal NGI
biometrics database system will hold DNA records and more.

Grever said that fingerprints and DNA appear to be the most mature and
searchable biometrics possibilities, but the FBI is working to include
iris-scan records among newer biometrics technologies to identify criminals
and terrorists. The plan is to share this data with authorized U.S. and
international investigative partners, as the agency does today.

The FBI's current IAFIS database remains a workhouse; it processes about
200,000 daily transactions from its 370 million 10-fingerprint records, and
it just crossed the 250 million transaction mark.

The next-generation FBI database system is under design by MorphoTrak and is
expected to include DNA, iris scans, advanced 3-D facial imaging and voice
scans among its multi-modal biometrics. Lower turnaround times for delivering
information over wide-area networks are planned. The goal is to drop from a
roughly two-hour response time for IAFIS urgent requests to less than 10
minutes.

But FBI officials acknowledged there's still a lot of research and
development that needs to be done to reach its NGI goals. One goal is to
develop a rapid DNA analysis method that would provide DNA analysis in less
than an hour, as opposed to several hours or even days. The FBI is
cosponsoring research with the Department of Defense, which has a similar
goal.

Kevin Reid, section chief for the biometrics service section at the FBI, said
the FBI also wants to establish a service-oriented architecture for NGI, but
it's not clear when this would be in place to provide services related to
biometrics information-sharing.

The FBI is already moving into new areas, including setting up a palm-print
repository and searchable databases for scars, marks and tattoos that it will
be collecting.

The FBI, under the DNA Fingerprint Act of 2005, is now allowed to collect
reference-sample DNA material for biometrics analysis purposes at the time of
booking, Grever said. "DNA has become a powerful and timely tool," said
Grever, adding there are no "privacy or civil liberties issues beyond those
associated with fingerprints."