Biometrics key to White House strategy on combatting terrorist travel

 

Connecting state and local government leaders

The National Strategy to Combat Terrorist Travel, which will rely on validating identities and leveraging biometric ID systems to detect and stop terrorists as they travel.

On Feb. 20, the White House released the National Strategy to Combat Terrorist Travel, which will rely on validating identities and leveraging biometric ID systems to detect and stop terrorists as they travel.

The whole-of-government approach aims to equip state, local and tribal partners with "terrorism-identity and travel data, as well as the tools and technology necessary to identify terrorists at the earliest opportunity," the strategy said. That information will come from improved identity-management systems and the expanded collection of suspicious travel indicators as well as "biometric, biographic, and derogatory data for vetting and screening."

Vetting, according to the document, includes "automated biographic and/or biometric matching against watchlists and threat information as well as manual and automated processes used to resolve potential matches and false positives."

Such biometric vetting is already being rolled out by Customs and Border Protection and has identified people attempting to travel with falsified ID.

CBP's new facial recognition systems that verify passenger identities at U.S. airports have gotten attention for nabbing imposters, and the agency said its trial of the technology at a southern border crossing is also yielding results.

The facial recognition system implemented a few months ago on a trial basis at the Port of San Luis border crossing near Yuma, Ariz., identified an alleged imposter on Feb. 19 trying to use a passport that didn't belong to him to enter the U.S.

Last October, the port began a technical trial of the same technologies that CBP has been deploying since 2017 at 14 "early adopter" airports across the U.S.

At airports, the tech compares photos of airline passengers on international departing flights against a temporary cloud-based database populated with previously captured photos of passengers. It works much the same way for pedestrians crossing the border. Images of each pedestrian at the crossing are compared with their photos of record documents, such as passports.

The system at the San Luis crossing flagged a mismatch when it compared a facial image of a supposed 22-year-old Colorado man who presented a valid U.S. passport travel card to the CBP officer at the crossing. The man's image captured on the facial recognition system didn't match the passport's historical record photo when the two images were compared by customs officers at the crossing.

The man was identified as an 18-year-old El Salvador native.

The alleged imposter wasn't the first to be nabbed by the trial, a CBP spokesman told FCW, GCN's sibling site. That happened last October, only a few days after the system was installed on Sept. 24.

The spokesman couldn't immediately provide the total number of imposters identified using facial recognition between last September and this February.

CBP is expanding the technical trial of the systems along the southern border. It plans to add another technical demonstration to an exit lane at the San Luis crossing later this spring. Shortly after the San Luis trial began, the agency set up another system at the Port of Nogales Dennis DeConcini Crossing further east in Arizona.

This article was first posted to FCW, a sibling site to GCN.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.