Biometrics training boosted in Germany

Biometrics is becoming more and more part of our daily lives, and many companies are thinking of taking advantage of this technology for internal security purposes. But which biometrics is appropriate for computer access, time recording or security control? It is a difficult choice to make as processes and offered products are constantly increasing in volume.

Biometric & ID Consulting, Steinbeis Transfer Centre for Identification Solutions and IDMC Biometrics Academy are working together by offering various training courses in Central Europe. The aim is to inform the companies and their employees correctly and extensively about different applications of biometrics.

"It is the first time in Germany and other parts of Europe that one can find courses that are independent of suppliers and where expert knowledge is offered to everybody and we are pleased to have IDMC Biometrics Academy working with us on this," stated Marcus Klische from Biometric & ID Consulting.

Thanks to biometrics catching criminals and closing cases is faster and more frequent. Harris County Sheriffs Office (HSCO) in Houston demonstrated this benefit when the biometric solutions it uses from Motorola helped in catching a murder felon who would have otherwise gone unidentified at the time of the incident.

A recent news release explains that the officers had entered a home to serve an arrest warrant to a wanted suspect in an unrelated case who was not in the home at the time. When looking to ID those at the home, all of which did not have proper identification on them, the officers used Motorola's Mobile Automated Fingerprint Identification System. The hand held device captures fingerprints of suspects and the Printrak Biometric Identification Solution fingerprints people and checks them against a database of fingerprints taken at prior crime scenes.

In doing so, they were able to positively identify one of the men as a murder felon.

A report by research firm, Frost & Sullivan predicts that the North American market for biometric applications will triple from 2004, which generated $527 million, to $1.4 billion in 2008.

Reuters reports that a US border security programme that photographs and fingerprints visitors from most foreign countries has apprehended just one terrorism-related suspect since its 2004 inception. Details about the 2005 case, brought to light under the Department of Homeland Security's US-VISIT programme, remain murky mainly because of classified restrictions on information about US counterterrorism efforts overseas.

US-VISIT, an acronym for US Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology, has denied entry to an estimated 1 644 foreign nationals by matching digital photos and fingerprint scans with records from criminal and terrorism databases.

Most turned away are criminals or immigration law violators. Apart from the single 2005 case, there have been no reported arrests of terrorism suspects as a result of US-VISIT, which has processed tens of millions of people since it began screening visa applicants in January 2004.

Senior Homeland Security Department officials joined their counterparts from foreign governments, other federal agencies, select IT vendors and pressure groups in the domestic and international privacy arena to discuss privacy policies and biometric technology at a conference in Washington this week.

The conference sponsors - a group of DHS agencies - afforded access to the unclassified conference to select non-profit organisations concerned with privacy issues from the US and Europe, but barred the media from most sessions of the meeting without explanation.

Stewart Baker, DHS's assistant secretary for policy, offered opening remarks about concerns the public has about new biometric technology and information sharing. Baker highlighted the public's concern about three factors involved in biometrics and information sharing policy:
* The "yuk factor", or distaste that people might feel about unfamiliar, invasive technology such as fingerprinting.
* The public's concern that biometric information gathered for identification purposes could also reveal other information, such as when a DNA sample might suggest that a person or their children could be especially vulnerable to a health problem.
* Concerns the public might have about the expansion of the categories of uses for personal information, such as when information gathered for counterterrorism purposes might later be applied to problems such as tracking down people who don't pay child support or speeding tickets.