Page 34 - FCW, August 2019

Emerging Tech
officials don’t miss an opportunity to connect dots that could stop terrorists or other criminals from entering the country.
He said CBP’s programs capture images of travelers at check-in or other screening points and compare them to “a small gallery of photos” compiled from passports, visas and photos taken during previous international trips to ensure that the people coming through are who they say they are.
The agency does not compare photos taken at an airport or seaport against any other databases or sources of information besides those gallery photos, Wagner said, adding that American citizens are “clearly not part” of CBP’s entry/exit program.
If a traveler’s photo matches a U.S. passport, the new photo is deleted.
“What we’re doing is absolutely not a surveillance program,” Wagner said.
However, government subcontractor Perceptics operated a database containing tens of thousands of photos of travelers in their cars, including license plates and other identifying information. After the database was hacked and its contents shared on the internet earlier this year, CBP suspended the company from federal contracting and is conducting an investigation that could lead to harsher penalties, including criminal charges.
Wagner said Perceptics’ system was not integrated with CBP’s primary biometric system (dubbed IDENT) and that the company did not follow the rules specified in its contract when employees captured and stored the photos on the Perceptics network.
“As far as I understand, the contractor physically removed those
photographs from the camera itself and put them into their own network, which was then breached,” he said. “The CBP network was not hacked.”
Protecting privacy and ensuring accuracy
The incident has led some lawmakers to question whether the expanded programs are in line with congressional intent. However, despite those concerns, support for biometric tracking remains solid among key congressional members of the Homeland Security Committee.
In his opening statement at the recent hearing, Chairman Rep. Bennie
“This technology, in my judgment, has really protected the nation from drug smugglers, gang members and potential terrorists.”
— REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL
Thompson (D-Miss.) said he was not opposed to the government using biometric technology to further the security mission of the Department of Homeland Security. However, the widespread adoption and acceleration of such programs by multiple
DHS components “raises serious questions about privacy, data security, transparency and accuracy,” he added.
“The American people deserve answers to those questions before the federal government rushes to deploy biometrics further,” Thompson said.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) urged his colleagues to weigh the possible negative consequences of denying DHS the authority to harness such technology against the downsides
associated with its use.
“This technology, in my judgment,
has really protected the nation from drug smugglers, gang members and potential terrorists,” McCaul said. He later added that “I wouldn’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
In early July, 37 privacy and civil liberties organizations sent a letter to the committee urging lawmakers to suspend DHS’ use of facial recognition technology until Congress can develop better legislative safeguards and address lingering accuracy issues. “DHS has moved forward with
face recognition with a focus on justifying its implementation and not a focus on whether, given the risks, the technology should be implemented,” the letter states.
Although Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and other lawmakers have called on CBP to halt its programs, no one on the House Homeland Security Committee, which has jurisdiction over DHS, made that argument at the recent hearing. Instead, most prefer
to focus on improving accuracy and privacy.
DHS is preparing to replace IDENT with a new cloud-based platform called the Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology system.
A privacy threshold assessment conducted in 2018 concluded that HART will require a formal privacy impact assessment before going live in 2020. That assessment was supposed to be completed by January 2019,
but a spokesperson in the Office of Biometric Identity Management told FCW the assessment is still being finalized and declined to provide a time frame for completion. n
30 August 2019 FCW.COM