TAMPA, Fla.—The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) supports moving forward with a new multimodal, identity database that goes beyond the current system that is heavily based on fingerprints as new and existing customers increase their demand on the repository, according to a department official.
DHS is expected to make a decision on moving forward with a new database within the next two to four years, Kenneth Gantt, acting deputy director of the Office of Biometric Identity Management (OBIM), says at the Global Identity Summit here. This will depend on funding but DHS is supportive of a new capability, he later tells HSR in an interview.
The IDENT database went from having information on 150 million unique individuals and 220,000 daily transactions a year ago to 173 million unique records and 300,000 customer queries currently, Gantt says.
In the next two to three years OBIM expects daily transactions to rise to about 400,000, he says.
“The mission is growing for us and it is growing big time,” Gantt says.
Transaction volume is the key driver behind the drive to go to a new identity database and Gantt says the current system will become saturated at around 375,000 daily queries, which is when capabilities will begin to be degraded. Above 400,000 transactions each day there will be further degradation although the system will continue functioning, he says in the interview.
At that point, leadership decisions have to be made about the system, Gantt says.
Degradation is measured relative to the response time of queries against a national watchlist within IDENT that consists of about 8.8 million records of higher threat individuals such as known and suspected terrorists. Customs and Border Protection’s current requirement for the response time is 10 seconds “and that’s a driver for us right now,” Gantt says.
Gantt says the new system will have the flexibility and scalability so that it could eventually double the current capacity in terms of storage and daily transactions.
Congress is providing support to bridge the gap between the current system and the new IDENT, Gantt says. He adds that there are capabilities in the current system, such as new matching algorithms that are being added, that will transition into the new system. He also says the new IDENT will have a new transaction manager.
The IDENT system is part of what is commonly called US-VISIT. OBIM, which is part of the National Protection and Programs Directorate within DHS, is responsible for storing, matching and sharing of records and queries related to IDENT. Other functions of US-VISIT were transferred elsewhere within DHS last year, with CBP responsible for entry and exit of foreign nationals into the United States and Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorized to investigate individuals that have overstayed their visas in the country.
Just like the FBI and Defense Department have done with their new biometric databases, the Next Generation Identification (NGI) system and an upgraded version of the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) respectively, Gantt says the new system that DHS eventually procures through a full and open competition will be multimodal. The modalities will be fingerprint, iris and face, he adds, with plans to store voice and possibly even go for DNA, which is “the ultimate biometric.” This will depend on where DHS “wants to go,” he says.
Accenture [ACN] was the systems developer and integrator for US-VISIT but is no longer supporting IDENT. That role belongs to CSC now [CSC]. Cogent, which is part of 3M Corp. [MMM], supplies the fingerprint matching capability for IDENT.
Lockheed Martin [LMT] is the prime contractor for the NGI system and Northrop Grumman [NOC] for the DoD ABIS system.