FBI Plans To Create Vast Biometric Database

December 25, 2007 4:57 p.m. EST

 
Clarksburg, W.Va. (AHN) - The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has planned to bring about a new billion-dollar database designed specifically to collect the physical characteristics of United States visa applicants. This database will not just be utilized by the FBI, but the British intelligence agencies also will be allowed to have access. This will be the world's biggest database of physical characteristics for security identification.

A West Virginia University- based researcher is presently working on the technology that will enable FBI to capture images of people's irises at distances of up to 15 feet and also faces from about 200 yards away, without any prior knowledge to the subjects. Biometric information such as: fingerprints, handprints, mugshots, the way a person walks, ear lobe shape and size, and iris scans, are being collected in a secure building in Clarksburg, W. Va.

With the introduction this avant-garde technology, the authorities, in the coming years, will be capable of identifying people by their iris pattern in their eyes, the shape of their face, the way they walk and talk and scars.

The Washington Post reported that over 900,000 American Police and law enforcement officials would be able to have access to the database. The U.S. Defense Department has by now collected images of fingerprints, irises and faces of over 1.5mln Iraqi and Afghan detainees, Iraqi Citizens and foreigners who went into U.S. military bases Richard Kolko, the FBI spokesperson, said, "We are consistently trying to update and improve the process and way to collect information."

The system is also known as Next Generation Identification, and is expected to cost FBI nearly $1 billion. The target of the system is the terrorist and criminal suspects. However, the civil liberties campaigners are criticizing the project, stating that: "It's enabling the always-on surveillance society."

President George Bush, on the other hand, said, "Innocent people would have no reason to fear from this project." "We need a system that is literally bigger, faster better. What we deal with is bad guys data, suspected terrorists or criminals."