Technology Taking a Lead Role in U.S. Security

by Terry Costlow

The Patriot Act and other legislation enacted to secure the nation’s borders have gotten plenty of criticism. That aside, one positive aspect of these laws is that they acknowledge the role technology will play in tightening up security.

Today’s civil servants charged with monitoring America’s borders are not unaccustomed to using electronics on the job. As more high-tech tools become available to them, they’re likely to begin considering the recent past to have been the low-tech era. “Technology use is...increasing all the time,” said William Anthony, a spokesman for the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP).

Biometrics to Take Lead

Some of the most visible changes will come with the U.S. Visit program, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) directive that will require foreign nationals to carry biometric identifiers in addition to conventional passports. By the end of the year, foreign nationals entering the country will have to have biometric identifiers to ascertain that they are who their passports say they are. DHS allocated $380 million this year for the program, with much of that funding going to support biometric systems.

U.S. Visit will begin with fingerprinting technology, but will likely add other biometrics technology before too long. In fact, in his April announcement of the program, DHS Secretary Thomas Ridge “anticipated” moving toward a system capable of taking pictures that “could be checked against databases to determine whether an individual should be detained or questioned.”

To help make this happen, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently published the results of the Face Recognition Vendor Test it administered last year. For this test, NIST judged several systems’ effectiveness using tests of more than 120,000 images of nearly 40,000 people. The results (www.frvt.com) provide insight into the viability of different technologies and rank associated system vendors by accuracy.

“A lot of government agencies are using [the Face Recognition Vendor Test] as a basis for which technologies they will look at,” said Howard Rachelson, marketing vice president at Omron Transaction Systems Inc. of Schaumburg, Ill.

While such vision recognition technology would provide more functionality, it’s not going to see much use in the short term since U.S. Visit and other initial programs plan to begin with fingerprint sensing only. “U.S. Visit was not designed to take them out on a limb,” said Joseph Atick, CEO of Identix Inc., a biometric company in Minnetonka, Minnesota. “They’re going with technology they know well — biometrics on a smart card.”

Industry Growth Envisioned

Like most in the biometrics arena, Atick predicts some significant growth for a fledgling industry that’s heard such prognostications before. He noted that the roadblocks that stymied earlier predictions that biometrics would soar have largely disappeared.

The horror of September 11 changed many people’s opinions of biometrics — including many who previously resisted fingerprint technology because of privacy reasons. Now, more people view fingerprint technology as a way to “keep the borders open for the honest majority while filtering out those we don’t want to move freely through our country,” he said. Additionally, fingerprint technology has evolved significantly, and most manufacturers say they have overcome hardware shortcomings that thwarted a market takeoff in the late 1990s.

What Does This Mean for Engineers?

A key goal for government development and implementation of biometrics is to come up with expandable architectures and to incorporate the ability to change from one technology or manufacturer to another into the initial design. At the same time, engineers have to make sure the technology actually makes it simpler to determine which visitors should be allowed to move freely across U.S. borders and who should be monitored more closely or even denied entry into the country. “Technology assures that we are able to carefully scrutinize not only more potential terrorist targets, but the right targets,” said Andrea Fuentes, a DHS spokeswoman.

Other Security Measures

Protecting U.S. citizens is a huge task, and checking the status of foreign visitors is just a tiny portion of the job entrusted to DHS. The agency is also charged with such tasks as preventing terrorists from using cargo ships to transport weapons of mass destruction. The department is using X-ray technology and far more sophisticated computer systems to track shipping manifests. X-rays can examine a large number of the thousands of huge containers that enter the United States every day, without disrupting today’s fast-moving transportation industry. “It’s not practical to open up every sea container. Technology is the key to providing protection without stopping the flow of goods,” CBP’s Anthony said.

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Terry Costlow has written about the electronics industry for more than 20 years, covering a wide range of technologies and topics.