Coast Guard expands biometrics program

[unhappycamper]

Coast Guard expands biometrics program
By Amy McCullough - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Nov 18, 2008 9:43:58 EST

Not unlike the service itself, the Coast Guard biometrics program is in a state of transition.

The service has been using biometric scanners on a pilot basis since 2006 in the Mona Passage near Puerto Rico to identify repeat offenders attempting to enter the country illegally. The results have been so successful the program has expanded into the Straits of Florida and is being used to track illegal Haitian migrants. Now Coast Guard leaders are looking at expanding the program to other border areas, Commandant Adm. Thad Allen said.

“We are transitioning into a steady state,” Allen said. “We want that to be part of our doctrine and how we do at-sea boardings.”

The biometrics-at-sea system is based around a $3,000 hand-held unit about the size of a football used to collect one or two fingerprints and take a digital picture.

Coast Guardsmen download the information from the reader and the name the migrant gives onto a laptop, which sends an e-mail via satellite link to the United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology database. It responds within three to five minutes and will either add the new person’s information or report a match. The database could show that a migrant has an arrest record, is on a terrorist watch list, has entered or tried to enter the U.S. before, or other details, officials said.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/11/cg_biometrics_111808/%2e