Over the past 15 years, the United\nStates military has developed a new addition to its arsenal. The weapon is set\nup around the world, mostly invisible, and grows more powerful by the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That weapon is a Huge database,\nPacked with countless images of faces, irises, fingerprints, and DNA\ninformation — a biometric dragnet of anyone who has come in contact with the\nU.S. military abroad. The 7.4 million identities from the database range from\nsuspected terrorists in military zones to allied soldiers training with U.S.\nforces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Allows us to focus our lethality.\nIt is like ripping the camouflage netting off the enemy ammunition dump,”\nwrote Glenn Krizay, director of the Defense Forensics and Biometrics Agency, in\nnotes obtained by OneZero. The Defense Forensics and Biometrics Agency (DFBA)\nis tasked with overseeing the database, also known formally as the Automated\nBiometric Information System (ABIS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DFBA and its ABIS database have\nReceived little scrutiny or press given the central role they play in U.S.\narmy’s intelligence operations. However, a newly obtained presentation and\nnotes written by the DFBA’s manager, Krizay, shows the way the company\nfunctions and biometric identification was used to spot non-U.S. citizens on\nthe battlefield thousands of occasions in the first half of 2019 alone. Once\nflagged, these folks can be identified through surveillance systems on\nbattlefields, close borders around the world, and on military bases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With greater focus, and if desired,\nlethality.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The demonstration also sheds light\nBased on Krizay’s demonstration, ABIS is joined to the FBI’s biometric\ndatabase, and this is in turn connected to databases utilized by local and\nstate law enforcement. Ultimately, that means that the U.S. military can easily\nsearch against biometric information of U.S. citizens and cataloged\nnon-citizens. The DFBA is also now working to join its information to the\nDepartment of Homeland Security’s biometric database. The system will finally\namount to a global surveillance system. In his notes, Krizay summarizes a\npossible scenario in which data from a defendant in Detroit will be run against\ndata collected from”some mountaintop from Asia.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The documents, which can be\nembedded In full below, were obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request.\nThese records were presented earlier this year at a closed-door defense\nbiometrics conference known as the Identity Management Symposium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ABIS is the result of a massive\nInvestment to biometrics by the U.S. military. In accordance with national\nprocurement documents examined by OneZero, the U.S. military has spent over\n$345 million in biometric database technologies in the previous ten decades.\nLeidos, a defense contractor that mostly focuses on information technologies,\nnow manages the database in question. Ideal Innovations Incorporated functions\na subsection of this database designed to control activity in Afghanistan,\naccording to documents obtained by OneZero through another FOIA request.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All these contracts, combined with\nRevelations surrounding the military’s massive biometric database initiatives,\npaint an alarming picture: A large and fast growing community of surveillance\nsystems run by the U.S. military and current anywhere the U.S. has deployed\ntroops, vacuuming up biometric data on millions of unsuspecting people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The military’s biometrics program,\nStarted in 2004, initially centered on the collection and evaluation of\nfingerprints. “In a war with no boundaries, uniforms, or defined lines of\nstruggle, understanding who is an enemy is essential,” John D. Woodward,\nJr., head of the DoD’s biometrics department, wrote in a 2004 brief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Defense contracted Lockheed Martin\nto start constructing a biometrics database to get an initial fee of $5\nmillion. The department suggested that it had been just able to successfully\nretrieve five favorable games from 150 biometric searches. A later contract\nwith defense industry giant Northrop resulted in similarly disappointing\nresults with reports of”system instability, inconsistent processing times,\nsystem congestion, transaction errors, and also a 48-hour outage.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By 2016, the DoD had begun to\ncreate Severe investments in biometric data collection. This year, the Defense\nDepartment deputy secretary Robert O. Work designated biometric identification\nas a critical capability for nearly everything the department does: fighting,\nintelligence gathering, law enforcement, safety, company, and\ncounter-terrorism. Military leaders began to speak of biometric technology as\na”game changer,” and directives from the DoD not only encouraged\nusing their technology by analysts, but also by soldiers on the ground. Troops\nwere taught to collect biometric information whenever possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Identical year, a defense firm\nNamed Leidos, that had acquired a huge portion of Lockheed’s government IT\ncompany, secured a $150 million contract to construct and deploy what’s now\ncalled the DoD ABIS system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Added over 213,000 people to the\nBEWL, a subset of DoD’s ABIS database, according to a Government Accountability\nOffice report. During that same period, the Department of Defense arrested or\nkilled more than 1,700 people around the world on the grounds of forensic\nmatches, the GAO report states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Krizay’s presentation indicates\nThat the United States utilized biometric matching to identify 4,467 people on\nthe BEWL list in the first two quarters of 2019. The presentation slide breaks\ndown the numbers: 2,728 of those games were of opposing forces carried out in\nthe”theater,” or area of where U.S. troops have been controlled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Presentation slides from Glenn June\n2019. Presentation in full below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DFBA claims that it has data on 7.4\nMillion unique identities inside its ABIS database, a vast majority of those\nsourced from military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to the\nagency’s website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That number is continually growing.\nThe documents suggest the DoD can collect biometric information in detainees,\nvoter enrollments, army enlistments in partner countries, employment vetting,\nor information given to the military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Almost every operation\nprovides The chance to collect biometrics,” a 2014 document on military\nbiometrics says. “While quality is desired over amount, maximizing\nenrollments from the database will likely identify more persons of\ninterest”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A graphic from a 2014 procedural\nDocument representing military usage of biometrics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ABIS also enables different\nOperations and missions in order to produce their own biometric watchlists.\nThese databases can be be plugged into custom-built military cellular devices\nused to scan fingerprints, irises, and match faces against databases, based on\na 2014 file outlining biometric procedures across the branches of the armed\nforces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Display slides from Glenn Krizay,\nmanager of the Defense Forensics and Biometrics Agency. June 2019. Presentation\nin full below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Fusion of an established\nidentity And information we all know about allows us to decide and act with\nincreased attention, and if desired, lethality,” Krizay wrote in his\ndemonstration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But much is still unknown about how\nThe DFBA and defense agencies utilize facial recognition and biometric\ninformation. A FOIA request which would return information about those systems\nwas denied in part by the U.S. Army.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Public release would be tantamount\nTo supplying uncontrolled overseas access,” the response letter stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his presentation notes for the\nAnnual Identity Management Symposium, Krizay hints at the future of DFBA and\nABIS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We will still need to reveal\nAdversary broker networks, identify and track proxy forces, protect our rear\nareas and lines of communication, accounts for enemy prisoners of war, and\nidentify high value individuals,” he wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The demonstration suggests that the\nDepartment hopes to integrate biometrics widely into security measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We have already shown we\ncan’t Protected our personnel systems,” he wrote. “If Wikileaks can\nobtain over a half a thousand of our accounts, what can the likes of China or\nRussia do?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DFBA also aims to better\nincorporate ABIS with other similar databases across the government. Even with\nDFBA being pitched as the central point of digital biometrics for the army, the\ndepartment remains not able to share data with the Department of Homeland\nSecurity’s biometrics system due to formatting issues. In 2021, the DoD is\nexpected to give a contract to get a new version of its biometrics program, one\nwhich brings identification software to the cloud and adds even more\ncapabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“In case Wikileaks can obtain\nover a Half a thousand of our reports, what can the likes of China or Russia\ndo?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, critics of facial\nRecognition and biometric technology both in and outside of government fret\nabout the truth of the technologies and how it is used, particularly in regards\nto bias inherent in a lot of machine learning, as well as privacy violations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The U.S. Commerce Departments’ When\nimplemented in combat situations, such discrepancies could have deadly\nconsequences for individuals misidentified by automated systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It’s unlikely That We’ll ever\nAchieve a stage where every single demographic is equal in performance\nthroughout the board, whether that is age, sex or race,” Charles Romine,\nmanager of the Information Technology Lab at NIST, advised the House Homeland\nSecurity Committee in June 2019. “we would like to understand just exactly\nhow much the difference is.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Executives at Leidos, the Builder\nwho built ABIS, don’t share similar issues about the validity of their data.\n“Interestinglythe latest U.S. National Institute of Standards and\nTechnology (NIST) evaluations show that the top-performing algorithms really\nwork with black faces compared to white faces,” Leidos Vice President John\nMears composed on the Leidos site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is not clear which tests Mears\nis Referring to on the NIST website, but when contacted concerning that quote,\nNIST did not support his own claim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“As a wide blanket statement\nit is Not right,” a NIST spokesperson informed OneZero, adding a report\nstudying demographics in facial recognition is now underway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leidos declined to comment with\nthis Story, also referred all questions regarding the DoD when asked how it\nassessed for prejudice in its facial recognition algorithms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This technical challenge Isn’t\nSlowing down the adoption of biometrics. It’s uncertain how many identities\nhave been added to ABIS because Krizay’s demonstration, or because DFBA last\nupdated its site. Every indicator suggests the military is simply growing its\ncapacity of collecting a growing number of data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As that data is further connected\nTo sources like the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. military’s\nsurveillance program grows stronger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We Aren’t wandering in the\ndark,” Krizay composed in his presentation. “We all know who people\nare and more of what they Have done”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Over the past 15 years, the United States military has developed a new addition to its arsenal. The weapon is set up around the world, mostly invisible, and grows more powerful by the day. That weapon is a Huge database, Packed with countless images of faces, irises, fingerprints, and DNA information — a biometric dragnet …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[33,37,102,240],"yoast_head":"\n