onClick Biometrics in touch

An early observation on frequent flying

Remember that frequent flyer pilot they began a month or so ago in a few airports around the nation? (Volunteers are allowing biometric information to be captured in order to bypass extensive security checks every visit.)

A paper in Minnesota published an opinion article as to the status of the program in their airport thus far. Evidently, it's doing well there. It could be that the program is as good as hoped, or that people in Minnesota are just good at obliging things. We'll sure see as the program progresses.

Security Program has early success.

It's official.

Congress OKs delay on biometric passports.

Testing. Testing.

What's going on with that whole deadline for US Visa-Waiver countries to get biometric enabled passports? Well, since you asked...
A meeting is planned next week to really sit down and figure out how realistic the goals are in relation to the technology. Testing of the hardware, software, and people's patience is in order.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will host a testing event for electronic passports featuring biometric data next week, opening a can of technological worms that will tax the ingenuity, patience and diplomacy of dozens of national governments, chip vendors and reader manufacturers.

US e-passport plan raises tech, diplomatic hackles

Pushing healthcare into the 21st century.

Healthcare coming current with modern processes = another chance for biometrics to shine.
This article requires a membership. Here's some good stuff:

The Bush administration plans to announce today a long-term plan for modernizing the nation's health care system with information technology, bringing patient records and prescriptions out of the realm of ink and paper and into the computer age.
The government, according to the report, will also use its formidable buying power as the largest purchaser of health care - through federal Medicare and Medicaid programs - to accelerate the transition to electronic patient records, reversing what the report terms "a previous lack of cohesive federal policies supporting" health information technology.
The report, "The Decade of Health Information Technology," is being published today at the beginning of a government-sponsored conference in Washington. It says that the government should work closely with the private sector to ensure common product standards for storing electronic health records, so data can be shared among institutions and personal information can be kept secure. A product certification system, the report says, should be considered.

Government wants to bring health records into computer age.

The never-ending controversies

So I know their point is a little different, but did they just NOT read the last post?:
Imis will call for the government to introduce tough penalties for anyone who changes or forges information used to establish identity, even when no apparent fraud has been committed.

Anyways, this is about the gripes one group has about government identification procedures.
"What the government needs to do is have proper validation for issuing passports. The government needs to validate its own ID checks."
Why can't we just do both? Seems fair.

Biometric ID cards do little to cut fraud, warns Imis

Australia facing some choices, mate.

Australia makes its case.
One of the countries that are jumping head first into developing proper biometric technologies, they are finding difficulties that other countries have yet to even address. However the biggest difficulty is that of understanding the importance of the technology, yet accepting the hurdles that need to be jumped in the process.
Doubts linger on biometrics.

Everything in a nutshell...

Forbes on Biometrics.
Guess they haven't been covering all the big projects to date, so they thought they'd just throw them all into one big pile of an article and call it done.
It's the quickest blurbs you can find on: US-VISIT (not even important enough to acknowledge the correct acronym I guess..), Piggly Wiggly, HIPAA, Texas medicaid pilot, livestock tracking, and retail expansion.
Biometrics beyond terrorism.

Biometrics in wartime

Iraq is ground zero for more than just one thing. It's also the place where the Army has set up shop to try out the sucess rate of biometrics as a typical tool in making the little things easier.
Iraq remains technology testbed.

US-VISIT's not-so-biggest fan

An opinion columnist in eWeek is dissecting US-VISIT. Skip to page 2 if you already know what it is and what they want to do with it. The important thing you want to get out of this article is an understanding of what he relates such a project to, and whether you agree or not.
What price security? US VISIT.

Who's on your side?

Making our way over to the political debate, we find Bush and Kerry speaking out on their technology views. This could have some affect on biometrics in the government sector.
Bush vs. Kerry on tech.