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New DoD newsletter

The DoD has available its first issue of their newsletter. Instead of just paraphrasing what the Director said, I'll just post it here:

Welcome to the first edition of the DoD Biometric Bulletin. As part of its public outreach mission, DoD Biometrics is pleased to publish this bimonthly newsletter to help educate the national security community and the general public about biometric technologies and how they are being used by the Department.

Each edition of the DoD Biometric Bulletin will focus on a particular theme. The stories in this edition report on the Department's biometric standards development. The January 2005 newsletter will feature the work of the Biometrics Fusion Center.

This web-based publication also includes an Update section, with news of interest, and a Technology Spotlight, which highlights a DoD organization employing the latest biometric technology. I hope you find the Biometric Bulletin interesting and informative. Comments are always welcome. Thank you for your interest in DoD Biometrics.

Read the newsletter.

The possibilities are endless

I got in a creative mood earlier and began thinking of useful implementations of biometrics that I haven't seen applied yet. Can you think of any?

• Museum memberships
• Apartment gates (has been talked about before, but never heard anything solid)
• That one drawer in your office desk that has your snacks (hey, people steal food all the time!)
• lockers or drawers in dorm rooms and their community bathrooms
• Ok, this was about the time I started thinking about something else....

Have a good weekend!

IBG teleconference today

I didn't get the normal pre-warnings from IBG that their monthly telecast was coming up - you think I'd know by now anyways. So... it's today. If you read this in the next few hours, you're in luck!

I would like to extend an invitation for you to participate in IBG's monthly teleconference series today at 1 pm ET. In these teleconferences, IBG will explore current topics in the biometrics
industry and address questions such as:

-What is the latest form of lunch money that kids are bringing to school?
-What is INCITS 385?
-What role did biometrics play at the recent Republican National Convention?

This month's teleconference series features three topics.
Participants can select from any of the following three tracks, which will be broadcast live in 30-minute intervals:

BIOMETRICS CAMPUS EDITION: THE EMERGING ROLES OF BIOMETRICS IN SCHOOLS (1:00 PM ET)
In the shadow of high-profile border security biometric deployments, biometrics have begun making headway in yet another critical environment – schools. From lunch lines to physical access control, biometrics are beginning to assume integral functions in interacting with students, parents, teachers, and school staff. Tune in to hear more about the emerging roles of biometrics in the school setting as well as case studies from schools in Wisconsin, North Carolina, and West Virginia.

THE PATH TO INTEROPERABILITY: STANDARDS IN THE BIOMETRIC INDUSTRY (1:30 PM ET)
As the applicability of biometrics broadens into diverse markets and industries, system interoperability has become an increasingly critical issue. In conjunction with the ongoing US-VISIT Program and other government-sponsored biometric deployments, the US Department of Homeland Security recently announced the adoption of a new facial recognition standard. During this segment, learn more about key standards organizations such as INCITS and ANSI as well as the latest standards development efforts in the biometric industry.

THE CUTTING EDGE OF LAW ENFORCEMENT: BIOMETRIC POLICE FORCES (2:00 PM ET)
Law enforcement has always been the oldest vertical market for biometric technologies. However, as law enforcement entities globally adopt more sophisticated and complex biometric systems, the roles of biometrics in the law enforcement sector are evolving. Hear more about the background of biometrics in law enforcement in addition to the latest biometric installments in police agencies around the world and the future trends for biometrics within this space.

There is no fee to participate in IBG's teleconference series.
Visit www.biometricgroup.com/webconferences.html for access details.

Hear! Hear!

In response to the upset of Mr. Barnes over his company requesting him to give in to the Mark of the Beast (see the previous post), this columnist gives his two cents.

The author declares himself an avid avoider of Big Brother and privacy-invading issues, but says that this now unemployed man may have taken it too far. His anger has clouded his better judgement, and maybe he just wants to be difficult. I don't know... but he needs to read this too.

The flaw in Mr Barnes' Mark of the Beast worries is that while he refuses to use a credit card, for the same reason as he wants to keep his fingerprint to himself, he had presumably been happy to use his company's old time-clock to punch himself in and out of work. As I recall, a punch clock uses coded cards, each unique to a user, which is the precursor to credit card barcodes and the technology that reduces the swirls and curls of a fingerprint into a unique combination of numbers. I fear for him that they are all equally marked by the beast.

Give the boss the finger? What rapture it will be.

Religion takes a stab at bringing down biometrics.

The religious conflict of interest will never go away. It's always going to be an issue when biometrics butts heads with people who are sure Big Brother and 'The Mark of the Beast' are things that need to be habitually avoided, and reside within the technology.

Like this one man, who lost his job because he refused to give his fingerprint for the new time & attendance system. Often the basis of such arguments lies in attributes of the technology that they believe to be true, however false it may be. But even when presented with the real facts, it doesn't do much to sway people who want to grasp at anything to continue holding onto their beliefs. If they dislike the technology so much, that in itself should be the reason why you refuse to use it. Not everyone likes computers, or cell phones - this is just one more technology that doesn't have to agree with everyone. Yes only the data is stored for use, not the fingerprint itself. But tell that to someone who believes it could be used to find out other things, and sometimes it just doesn't do any good.

Employers as it is have so much information on their employees that using a fingerprint to "find out how many seconds staff spend on the toilet" seems trivial. Right now they can look up credit reports, and past addresses, criminal history... They don't need a fingerprint for that.

Man sacked for refusing to give employer his fingerprints.

Update: Right up the alley of this post is an opinion article just published on eWeek's site. Keep Real Privacy Risks in Focus.

In the meantime, I don't want to yield the floor to the forces of hysteria. In an essay published in the Detroit News last year, Clyde Wayne Crews, director of technology studies at the libertarian Cato Institute think tank, said, "Data-mining and biometrics, at least in principle, are about enhancing convenience, service, authentication and individual security more than they are about invading privacy." That's exactly right.

Let's keep real privacy risks in focus and merely apparent risks in the background, where they belong.

Time for Wells Fargo to start playing the offense.

Identity thieves decided to take Well Fargo's "hands on banking" a little too far and decided to get their "hands on" some of the company's computers and the customer data. Once again, computers were stolen from a 2nd company being outsourced by Wells Fargo. The PCs contained data on some customers of the bank, making this the 3rd time in a year and a half that Wells Fargo has had their customer data stolen in this manner.

So far, they haven't been made aware of any misuse of information resulting from any of these thefts. Guess they won't really do anything until they do hear of something.

Wells Fargo computers stolen.

Identity Management made easier...ideally.

Since the post on defining identity management solutions just days ago, I've come across another juicy bit along the same lines.

Microsoft drops some infromation on Gemini, the next version of Microsoft Identity Integration Server to be realeased in 2006 or 2007. It is supposed to provide a simple, cost-effective solution that let users manage the identity information themselves.

No talk yet as to whether it will be an option to incorporate the biometrics they have just started providing.

Simpler ID management readied by Microsoft.

What a smart gun you have.

Smart handguns are one of those things that are inevitable, they pop up in the news every so often just to remind us that they are still around. By the time they finally release them for commercial consumption, everyone will know what a 'smart gun' means.

And that's a good thing for New Jersey citizens, who by law will eventually only be offered smart guns because dealers and manufacturers won't be allowed to sell a gun unless it has a way of being personalized, or identifying its users.

Plus, research and development has just received a $1.1 million grant from the US Department of Justice to make sure they make their January 2006 deadline.

NJIT's smart gun moves closer to completion with $1.1 million grant.

Identity Management can't forgo security for convenience.

Identity management solutions need to find a common ground between usability and security. A very good article detailing the real world identity management solutions in place by some of the Fortune 500 companies illustrates that what is ideal and what is real may not always be the case. Especially now since even the term 'identity management' finds itself lacking a universal definition.

The complexity with identity management is that it first means usability. Convenience is key when trying to skim time and money off the top brought about by log-in difficulties for multiple applications. What sounds good to companies now is a single sign-on solution, maybe one for Windows apps and one for web services. The best way to describe something like this would be an organizational tool for speeding up business processes.

It's a management tool in that regard. But what it fails to do is 'identify'. Sure it does once, or twice, but after that, security is no longer a concern. It's an issue. It's something that's bound to be trampled on the first time someone figures out the single sign-on who doesn't belong. Once in, they have access to every application or service permitted.

At least places like BellSouth who are looking to an ID management system also are aware that thousands of customers could be at risk because they want to provide faster customer service. It doesn't have to be one or other - the safety of your confidential information against identity thieves or faster phone customer service - it can be both.

That being made apparent, one solution BellSouth is looking to add to their system is biometric technology. With that, a single sign-on identity solution can be secure, convenient and organized.

Identity management in the real world.
What's identity management? Ask 20 vendors, get 20 answers. But CSOs aren't waiting for a universal definition; they're busy tackling whatever projects meet their business needs.

Wireless fingerprinting devices ideal for law enforcement.

This might hold the most interest for me, considering that we are in Houston, but we will be seeing shortly a pilot program taking place with the local law enforcement. The Harris County Sheriff's office (Houston) purchased 1,000 handheld wireless AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification System) devices from Motorola. They did so at an event in Miami showcasing all the latest and greatest crime-fighting technology.

The AFIS devices are to be used when an officer pulls someone over, and they put their finger on the machine so that instantly it can tell if the person has any warrants or criminal history. Sometime long ago I recall these also being tested in other locations, but haven't heard much on it since.

Crime-scene pros learn new methods.