Flexibility built into systems at the outset could solve the Department of Defense’s problem with integrating widespread biometric capabilities, according to a Unisys [UIS] executive.
Biometric identification has been available for decades, but its use at DoD has not followed the market–despite demand for missions ranging from securing bases to identifying insurgents.
“They tended to build systems as if they knew all of the requirements walking in the door,” said Unisys Federal Chief Technology Officer Mark Cohn.
Cohn described current biometric deployments as “self-contained.” The systems each have their own proprietary software, hardware and algorithms, resulting in rigid tools that cannot evolve with the mission.
Instead, Cohn said he has recommended to DoD that the department use a vendor neutral system with additional components already built-in. The gold standard, in his opinion, is a system that connects both intelligence and identification. For example, if a partial fingerprint is found on an IED or at a bomb-making factory, it can be linked back in real-time to fingerprints collected from local populations in a combat zone.
“We don’t currently have the capabilities to do that,” he said.
Such a system would require network availability to transport information and a flexible architecture to link multiple databases.
Cohn and his Unisys team have been working on similar projects that he believes could be applicable to DoD. The company has deployed biometric capabilities since the mid-1990s using a system called LEIDA (Library of Electronic ID Artifacts). The software can handle fingerprint, face, iris and signature scans with commercial-off-the-shelf technology and any analysis algorithms that the user would need. The result is a less expensive tool with more options, Cohn said.
LEIDA has been used from airports to voter booths, but Cohn cited a project in Angola to explain how LEIDA could reach the battlefield. In 2008 UNISYS created a biometric-based national ID card in the African country to reduce fraud. The company used trucks to bring networks to more remote parts of Angola to support LEIDA, similar to the military’s challenge of finding a network while deployed.
The Pentagon does not currently have a solicitation out for biometric capabilities, but the issue has persisted even as combat operations draw down. Biometrics could help DoD grapple with the Common Access Card (CAC) problem. Biometrics prevent impersonation if a CAC is stolen and used illegally. The ability to authenticate with features that are more difficult to spoof is relevant to both physical and computer systems, especially as passwords have declined in effectiveness as users make them simpler to remember them. Cohn said biometrics could provide a third option between CACs and passwords.