Military Pursues Biometric Agenda

At military bases on U.S. soil, it’s not that easy.

The use of biometrics _ ranging from simple fingerprints to more advanced retinal and facial scans _ has thrived in Iraq, where soldiers carry handheld devices that enable them to link to databases filled with hundreds of thousands of identities.

But in Colorado, military bases just 20 miles or so apart have different identification requirements and access procedures for personnel or contractors trying to get onto the property. The gaps raise security concerns and worries of another attempted massacre scheme, like the one foiled at Fort Dix in New Jersey in 2007.

“Interestingly, we are probably further forward in using biometrics outside our country in some of the combat environments than we are inside our country,” Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, commander of U.S. Northern Command, said Tuesday. “We’ve got to find a way to fix that.”

Speaking at a biometrics conference, Renuart said the military services and law enforcement agencies around the country all carry different ID badges, and many are embedded with different information. And in some cases those agencies, he said, also have different computer databases that don’t communicate well.

The more coordinated collection and use of biometrics, however, raises privacy concerns in the United States as well as in Iraq, where there are fears the information could be used for ethnic cleansing, to discern whether someone is a Sunni or a Shiite. And the presidential order for improved information sharing is also among the directives signed by President Bush that may be reviewed anew by the Obama administration.

Using biometrics on the battlefield took hold early in the Afghanistan war, when U.S. officials wanted to allow Afghan Muslim pilgrims to travel to the holy city of Mecca for the annual hajj. Officials reached for biometrics as a way to track who was traveling to Saudi Arabia, and to make sure those were the same people allowed back.