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FBI To Spend $1B Expanding Fingerprint Database

Posted by kdawson on from the lot-of-iris-scans dept.

mytrip and other readers alerted us to news that the FBI is about to announce the awarding of a $1B, 10-year contract to expand its fingerprint database to incorporate other biometrics — palm prints, iris scans, scars, tattoos, possibly facial shape — "Whatever the biometric that comes down the road, we need to be able to plug that in and play," an FBI spokesman is quoted. Barry Steinhardt of the ACLU sounded the cautionary note: "This had started out being a program to track or identify criminals. Now we're talking about large swaths of the population — workers, volunteers in youth programs. Eventually, it's going to be everybody."

2 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. biometrics is the future by noremorse10 · · Score: 4, Informative

    The FBI will be awarding the 10 year, 1 billion dollar contract in the next few days to one of the large system integrators: IBM, Lockheed or Northrop. But within the next 6 months the biometric portion will be awarded for running the fingerprint database. The favorite is Cogent Systems (COGT) a leader in the biometric space. They run the biometric database for the US_VISIT program and other large scale fingerprint biometric identification systems around the world. See video about them http://www.cogentsystems.com/video.asp

    1. Re:biometrics is the future by smchris · · Score: 3, Informative


      You'd think they'd go with IBM. Their track record supporting Hitler was so impressive:

      http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/jun2001/ibm-j27.shtml

      But will they use linux?