With the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) soon expected to begin laboratory testing of vendor and technologies as part of an effort to implement a biometric exit program for foreign nationals departing the U.S. by plane, identity solutions provider MorphoTrust is recommending that the government incorporate face and iris recognition along with the expected fingerprint checks to provide options for exit solutions.
In meetings with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, MorphoTrust has been making the case for a multimodal approach to a biometric exit program that would incorporate face recognition and possibly iris too, Jim Albers, senior vice president of Government Operations for MorphoTrust, tells HSR in a telephone interview this month. MorphoTrust is part of Morpho, a division of France’s Safran Group that does business in identity solutions and detection.
DHS’ current enterprise solution for biometrics, which is the IDENT database, is based on fingerprints. The department uses IDENT to verify the identities of foreign nationals visiting the U.S. as part of the US-VISIT program and also to do checks on immigrants caught trying to enter the country illegally.
Albers believes that eventually DHS will go to a multimodal biometric enterprise but to get there means it will have to begin adding modalities like face and iris recognition to IDENT.
“I think it is a foregone conclusion so they will be doing that,” Albers says.
To include face and iris images in the database will require that these modalities be collected at enrollment, which would be done overseas by the State Department as part of the visa application process, upon entry into the U.S. if a traveler if from a Visa Waiver country, or as part of the processing of illegal immigrants.
Since 2004 MorphoTrust has been providing the Department of State with a facial recognition system that is the largest such database in the U.S. and has also been supplying the Defense Department with face and iris matching capabilities as part of the Automated Biometric Identification System database used to deny anonymity to insurgents and terrorists in overseas war zones. The company is also working with the FBI to upgrade its Next Generation Identification biometric database with face and iris recognition capabilities through pilot projects.
Albers says that capturing the face and iris biometrics as part of enrollment processes shouldn’t be too difficult given that the State Department is already taking photos for visa applicants and so is DHS as part of US-VISIT, although in this latter case the image is not of face recognition quality. He points out that companies like Iris ID and Sarnoff are already selling cameras that simultaneously capture recognition quality face and iris images.
These systems can be integrated with the kinds of kiosks that Customs and Border Protection uses to process members of its Global Entry trusted traveler program when they enter the U.S. Global Entry currently verifies travelers’ identities through a fingerprint check. MorphoTrust already supplies kiosks to state motor vehicle departments as part of their respective driver’s license enrollment and issuance processes, which includes photo capture.
For a biometric air exit implementation, Albers says he foresees capturing the biometrics of departing foreign nationals in two locations, first prior to the aviation security checkpoint and finally at the gate as passengers prepare to transit through the jetway on the way to an aircraft. This concept entails people checking in at the airport and then checking out just before they fly, he says.
Facial recognition can be done quickly at the gate for people who are already in a manifest or have checked in prior to going through checkpoint security, Albers says. The biggest challenges, which would also likely be the case with any fingerprint-only system as well, is to not disrupt travel and also be carefully of how any technology is integrated into the local real estate, he says.
One advantage that face recognition has is that it doesn’t require an overt action by a traveler to capture the image as a fingerprint device would, Albers says. He adds that the algorithm matching technology has advanced to the point that even if another person’s face is in the image, matching can still be done quickly.
MorphoTrust is currently selling a contactless fingerprint reader called Finger-on-the-Fly which requires a person to simply wave their hand over the device for a quick capture and match function but this technology still requires the person to initiate an action, Albers says.
Unlike outdoor environments, and advantage to being inside an airport is that the lighting can be controlled to better enable quality face image capture, Albers says. He says that seaports also present a favorable environment for capturing face images, pointing out that cruise ships sometimes do this as passengers exit the gangplank at various destination spots and then capture their face images when they reboard to ensure everyone is accounted for.
The biggest challenges for any biometric deployments are at land borders, particularly in vehicle lanes. If there are passengers in the backseat of a van, Albers says this presents tricky problems for ensuring that each person’s identity has been verified. And adding sensors on either side of a vehicle, while doable, adds to the costs, he says.