Iris Scans, Facial Recognition and other two edges swords

Back in the mid 2000s I remember an article on a USMC Reserve major and the trouble his unit had with creating a database of possible hostiles in Iraq. Now he's went home on his leave and meeting with the people at his civilian business, the developed an iris reader and the software to establish an online database. Helped to identify the bad guys by letting us know who was lying about themselves when stopped. This idea spread to civilian law enforcement and other intelligence operations. However, it looks like the bad guys are also using it. And that can make undercover operations difficult.

To Catch a Spy

In the age of iris scans and facial recognition software, biometrics experts like to point out: The eyes don’t lie. And that has made tradecraft all the more difficult for U.S. spies.

After billions of dollars of investment — largely by the U.S. government — the routine collection and analysis of fingerprints, iris scans, and facial images are helping to ferret out terrorists and immigration fraudsters all over the world. But it has also made it harder for undercover agents to remain anonymous.

Gone are the days of entering a country with a false passport and wearing a wig and a mustache to hide your true identity. Once an iris scan is on record, it becomes nearly impossible to evade detection.

“In the 21st century, you can’t do any of that because of biometrics,” said retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

On top of that, ever-present closed-circuit TV surveillance and Internet-tracking tools combine to make life even more dangerous for undercover agents. As such, the erosion of anonymity is forcing the U.S. intelligence community to rethink how it does business.

“You have to take many more security measures to be able to prepare someone to operate in an environment in which you can no longer physically hide,” Flynn said in a recent interview with Foreign Policy.

A senior Defense Department official said the policies have changed decisions about who can travel where — and how often. “It limits your movement,” said the official, who was not authorized to be named in discussing tradecraft and spoke on condition of anonymity.

At the CIA, the concerns have prompted a new era of cyber-espionage to compensate for the emerging limits on clandestine operations.

“Our ability to carry out our responsibilities for human intelligence and national security responsibilities has become more challenging,” CIA Director John Brennan said in March in announcing a major internal reorganization of the agency. It includes the creation of the Directorate of Digital Innovation, and in a memo to staff, Brennan called on the CIA to “embrace and leverage the digital revolution.”

...Today, even criminal and terrorist organizations are using biometric systems to track their own members, Flynn said.

When it comes to counterterrorism and border security, collecting biometric data has become commonplace across the world. That wasn’t the case before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when border agents didn’t bother with biometrics, said Terry Hartmann, vice president for security solutions and industry applications at Unisys, an information technology company.

“And now routinely, all countries are collecting as a minimum facial images of people crossing the border,” Hartmann said. “Many countries are collecting fingerprints as well. Some are collecting iris scans.”

During the war in Iraq and still in Afghanistan, the U.S. military collected biometric information from millions of people, from suspected insurgents to people applying to work on U.S. bases to everyday citizens. By lifting latent fingerprints off unexploded and sometimes even exploded handmade bombs, the military created a database of suspected insurgents and extremists in hopes of apprehending them at checkpoints and border crossings.

The United States also is collecting biometrics from Syrian rebels whom U.S. troops are training to fight the Islamic State, according to U.S. Central Command. The rebels’ information is being used in preliminary background checks and could be stored for future reference as well, should they ever be needed in terrorism investigations.

“All of the things that make it difficult to keep your identity from being disclosed also make it that much easier for us to discover others,” said Roger Mason, who served as assistant director of national intelligence for systems and resource analyses before joining Noblis, a nonprofit science and technology organization....

...Facial recognition technology has vastly improved, with analysts now able to match images that are less than perfect. And with computer power increasing, the speed of analysis is much faster.

“Irises have gone from being a curiosity to being a mainstream biometric,” Hartmann said.

Another part of the field that is quickly growing is the collection and analysis of DNA swabs, which can come from the inside of one’s cheek, a hair follicle, or even a discarded cigarette. Because DNA matches take hours to develop, it currently is not a viable biometric for fast-moving border security checks.

DNA is used in law enforcement, and the Defense Department has collected samples on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. And, Hartmann predicted, it won’t be too long before DNA technology catches up and can be more widely used.

“It’s a lot faster than it was 10 years ago,” Hartmann said. “It took days to weeks to get a result. Now, we’re talking hours. In 10 years’ time, we’ll be talking minutes.”

While the technology has been advancing rapidly, there have only been a few rare glimpses into how biometrics collection is changing the world of clandestine operations....

...But the best-known example of the new spy world is the 2010 assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas. His killing was considered a fiasco for the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad because its spies’ covers were completely blown — thanks to biometrics and surveillance technology.

The Israeli agents made a handful of mistakes throughout the mission. But crucial to their exposure was new border security and surveillance technology.

Investigators ultimately identified 27 Israeli agents involved in the killing by piecing together photographs inside fraudulent passports, immigration records, credit card receipts, and high-resolution closed-circuit TV footage inside the airport and various hotels.

The Mossad agents had forged passports by copying the authentic ones of dual Israeli citizens from the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, and Australia, provoking widespread anger from those countries...

...As DNA and other biometric collection and analysis become more routine and more sophisticated, officials and experts said it is only going to become more dangerous for spies to operate...

And for undercover law enforcement. Or snitches working for us inside of criminal organizations.

I remember going into a disturbance call where several undercover officers were there and they were all covering their faces for obvious reasons. However, this may not help soon enough. If this can stop an intelligence operations like the Mossad, it will stop local cops.