ID management

crime, database, EU, ID management, law enforcement, management, SecurLinx, UK

Law enforcement interoperability, though little discussed, is a big deal

Tyneside jewellery heist could lead to DNA sharing (Chronicle Live)

A jewellery heist on Tyneside has sparked a review of DNA sharing across Europe that could force police to hand over criminal records to foreign counterparts.

Specialists in Newcastle will spearhead a £1.2m effort to design a database that profiles crimes committed across the continent as part of a controversial EU information sharing treaty.

It comes just 12 months after a convicted murderer and his armed gang from Eastern Europe were convicted of carrying out an armed raid at a Newcastle jewellers.

Led by convicted murderer Marek Viidemann, the ring was linked to at least 150 armed robberies across the UK and Europe before being eventually jailed for a total of more than 30 years.

First, DNA is likely to be a small part of whatever system improvements emerge.  It’s expensive and slow compared to just about any other biometric modality or combination of modalities such as finger, face and iris.

From a management standpoint it seems that if you want to have a free flow of people, you need to have a free flow of law enforcement information. This is easier said than done. It’s often a challenge even when dealing with adjacent counties in the same state in the US much less, as in the European context, two different countries.

The term for this system compatibility and ability to effectively cooperate among departments is interoperability. It is a managerial and technical challenge that is rarely dealt with in popular depictions of how law enforcement works but, especially as the complexity of the law enforcement challenge increases, it is of critical importance.

Often, there are good systems in place for passing information “up the chain of command,” i.e. from street cop all the way up to a state or national information repository, but the information doesn’t always flow as freely back down again in the other direction. For various reasons, the formal links between street-level law enforcement officers in neighboring jurisdictions run up through a centralized authority and then back down again, though there are often informal links that bypass the up-and-back-down information flow model. The implications for efficient multi-jurisdictional law enforcement are clear.

Some of these issues came up a couple of years ago in a post. Usefulness of Biometrics in Law Enforcement: Who is the Customer? The analysis there can be extended from biometrics to all sorts of law enforcement IT systems and it has a great deal of bearing on issues like the ones raised by the Newcastle jewelry heist by international criminals.

Many police professionals put a lot more into databases of all types than they ever get out of them. Through biometric technologies and other integration services, SecurLinx works hard to balance that out a bit for our law enforcement customers.

border, government, ID management, immigration, management, technology, UK

Britain’s immigration system since 2000

Immigration issues have been hot topics in both the US and the UK.

Visa consultancy WorkPermit.com provides a short recap of the history of the United Kingdom’s border management this century.

Former UK immigration boss says system has been out of control since 2000

It’s a pretty grim assessment. Turning the situation around will require talented managers operating within a more flexible political environment applying the best technology to the task. Easy for me to say. The technology part, while difficult, is by far the most easily met of those three preconditions for success.

Africa, corruption, education, ID management

Biometrics as engines of cultural change

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) in Sierra Leone is adopting a new biometric system to reduce impersonation among test takers and also to help eliminate bureaucratic errors.

We’ve covered the return on investment (ROI) of biometric ID systems quite extensively and the decision makers at the WEAC obviously saw the ROI potential of adding a biometric check to the testing process. Something else we have talked about (and it’s one aspect of biometrics that is intensely interesting to development types) is the accountability biometric systems can help bring to organizations and the cultural changes better ID management allows for.

Sheriff Sapateh, Head of the WEAC National Office gets this part, too:

WAEC launches Biometric Registration system (Awoko h/t @Argus_Global)

The Head further noted that examination malpractice unlike HIV/AIDS has a cure, adding that in order to win the war against examination malpractice there must be a holistic effort by all stakeholders in the education sub-sector.

He said that to avert a total collapse of our education system, there is a need for an entrenchment of a culture of examination ethics which is the respect for the rules, regulations, expectations, codes of conduct and moral principles governing the conduct of assessment and evaluation system, not only in educational institutions but in all sectors of the economy.

Using better ID management techniques can help to develop and encourage a more ethical culture — one less hospitable to corruption. Managers who understand this and want to do something about it have an ally in biometric ID management systems.

audit, database, drivers license, facial recognition, ID management, New Jersey

Biometrics reveal improperly issued drivers licenses in New Jersey

Yesterday we concluded the “perfect is the enemy of good” post, with the observation that the merit of biometric ID systems is established when biometrics are used to audit what we termed “Industrial Age” systems.

Right on cue, The Trentonian (Trenton, NJ) reports that:

A new, high tech software has helped authorities identify two city men who fraudulently obtained New Jersey Drivers Licenses, according to the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General (AOG).

Raymond Feeney, 51, and Kirk Bland, 50, have been indicted on charges of using personal information of another to obtain a driver’s license, tampering with public records and forgery. Feeney’s license was suspended on four driving while intoxicated convictions, Bland’s licenses were suspended on two unrelated DUIs.

Any guesses as to what kind of high tech software was used to audit the New Jersey drivers license database, or the scope of the fraud detected (error rate, if you will)?

Many critics of the adoption of biometric identity management technology try to argue that unless biometric techniques are infallible and perfect, then they shouldn’t be used. This line of reasoning ignores the fact that the systems they themselves depend upon for the identity documents that enable their full participation in the modern world are demonstrably fallible.

Is it any wonder, then, that developing countries that don’t already have universal access to DMV’s, birth certificates, social security cards, etc., are not only adopting biometric ID management techniques but that they are deploying them at the front end of their ID infrastructure rather than as a remedial measure?

ID management, jail, law enforcement, prisons

Prisoner pulls same ID switcheroo twice.

U.S. Marshals tracked Marquez to a Michigan home in January. However, he pulled the same identity-swap trick on jail officers there after he was arrested and booked. He walked out of that jail too.

Currently, he is on the run and considered armed and dangerous.

Simple mistakes led to Maricopa County Jail escape; armed and dangerous suspect still on loose
(ABC15.com)

As the headline says, they’re simple mistakes. They’re also simple to fix.

I can’t think of a good reason to forego the use of computerized biometric checks for prisoner release. I say computerized because evidently, there was a sergeant who compared an older, smudged, thumb print with a fresh one before allowing the release — an additional benefit of automated fingerprint systems is that they often come with a quality checker on the front end, which goes a long way to preventing the “garbage in” part of the famous metaphor.

Another important issue, touched upon in the video below is the issue of specific training regarding the prisoner release process.

The sheriff’s office is in the procurement stages for new, biometric technology.

fingerprint, ID management, jail, Michigan, US

Erroneous prisoner release due to “out of order” biometric hardware, Detroit edition

How can the Wayne County jail be overcrowded if beds are empty? (My Fox Detroit)

And last week’s boner. Rocky Marquez, a fugitive found in Detroit with a loaded assault rifle, escaped from county lockup by switching identity with another inmate. How did that happen? The fingerprint identification machine was out of order.

“That is the most basic tool in the world to be able to verify a man’s identity biometrically by his fingerprint. We don’t have it,” said a person who didn’t want to be identified.

“It is a critical piece of equipment that needs to be fixed and we will get it fixed,” Napoleon said.

There was a similar case in Georgia this past December.

finger, Georgia, ID management, jail, prisons, US

Fingerprint ID system taken offline, jail releases wrong man

This is why Intake-and-Release biometrics are gaining popularity in jail management circles…

Escaped Inmate Captured As Investigation Continues At The Chatham County Jail  (Old link dead)
The Georgia jail that released the wrong prisoner ordinarily uses fingerprint biometrics to ensure that the correct person is being set free. The system, however, was not in use at the time.

UPDATE: There is still video available of the story.

enrollment, ID, ID management, India, UID, verification

India UID: Things are about to get real

In simple terms, an ID project has two parts: enrollment and verification.

Enrollment is the process by which a user is vetted by, entered into, or purchases an ID management regime.

Verification is when the ID management solution actually has to fulfill its intended function.

You don’t really know for certain if the key you just had made is going to open your front door until you try it. You won’t know if the combination lock you just bought works until you try it. And India won’t know how smoothly the UID-based system can provide a transition away from the subsidy system to the cash transfer system until it gives it a try.

Verification is where the rubber meets the road and India is about to take its first UID test drive as Dr Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India, announced last month the launch of a direct electronic cash transfer scheme leveraging India’s Unique Identification (UID) Programme. (FutureGov)

The government has announced that direct cash transfer of subsidies to the bank accounts of the recipients would start in 51 out of India’s 659 districts from January 2013 and would be gradually extended to the rest of the country by April 2014. (The Hindu)

Hopefully things go well. It’s hard to overstate the challenge involved or the importance of the project’s success.

evidence, ID management, law enforcement

Strengthening the ‘chain of custody’ with biometrics

Biometric Access Control Systems Help to Improve Evidence Management (Press Release)

How many times have Law and Order, NCIS, Dexter or some other crime drama aired episodes where evidence has “gone missing”? Most likely, it’s been too many times to count. Watching these shows and seeing racks of cardboard boxes in an unmonitored storage room leaves the average citizen wondering; is that how things are handled at my police station? The answer is, not anymore and things are improving all the time.

Property and evidence control and tracking causes enormous concerns in law enforcement. The process for tracking evidence has typically consisted of manually filling out property forms, which may lead to errors and inconsistent chain of custody records. 

This stainless steel, wall-mounted, computerized kiosk houses a biometric ID reader for access verification and touch screen user navigation. LEID Products chose Advanced Kiosks to build their BACS Systems because of the durability, ruggedness and quality of its state-of-the–art kiosks which meets the high standards required for BACS Systems.

This is a great application of biometrics to law a enforcement identity management challenge.

access control, ID management, IT, logical, network, security

Networked IT ID management in the real world

Passwords are the weak link in IT security (Computerworld)

Password security is the common cold of our technological age, a persistent problem that we can’t seem to solve. The technologies that promised to reduce our dependence on passwords — biometrics, smart cards, key fobs, tokens — have all thus far fallen short in terms of cost, reliability or other attributes. And yet, as ongoing news reports about password breaches show, password management is now more important than ever.

All of which makes password management a nightmare for IT shops. “IT faces competing interests,” says Forrester analyst Eve Maler. “They want to be compliant and secure, but they also want to be fast and expedient when it comes to synchronizing user accounts.”

Is there a way out of this scenario? The answer, surprisingly, may be yes.

It goes on from there to cover several different solutions, including biometrics.

Africa, elections, ID management, Kenya, vote

Kenya Elections: Many reasons for worry

The whole sad saga dating to September of last year is here.

Today’s news doesn’t inspire optimism that Kenya can deploy a successful biometric voter registration system (which, without voter verification, is really only half of a biometric election system anyway) by March.

The Biometric Voter Registration Kits are late.

Anxiety is also increasing due to several other factors that are well covered in Fear grows over delays in voter registration at the Kenya Standard.

That fear has grown to the point where public officials are publicly beginning to wonder whether there isn’t some conspiracy afoot that aims to delay elections. Placed against the historical backdrop of Kenya’s electoral experience — only three presidents since 1964, and many hundreds killed following the last presidential elections in 2007 — it’s no wonder Kenyans are starting to worry.

Correctly deployed and well managed biometric voting technology can be extremely helpful in bringing rigor and transparency to electoral systems at a cost that less developed countries can afford. Through careful planning and wise investments in technology, countries can build an affordable and rigorous ID infrastructure that strengthens democracy, which in turn opens the door to other benefits.

The systems themselves are technically complex but there are plenty of organizations like SecurLinx that can supply the technical expertise to implement them. The technical complexities, however, make up only a fraction of the overall bureaucratic load of running a decent election.

The logistical and human resources challenges are far larger and more expensive to address than the technical challenges of biometric systems.

Like we always say… Biometrics & ID management: it’s about people.

UPDATE: 
Kenya: Justice Minister Eugene Says Treasury Was Poll ‘Saboteur’ (All Africa)

Yesterday Prime Minister Raila Odinga chaired a crisis meeting at his office to resolve the delay in the procurement of the Biometric Voter Registration kits with the IEBC top officials, Finance minister Njeru Githae, Justice minister Eugene Wamalwa, Lands minister James Orengo and Treasury PS Joseph Kinyua among others.

However President Kibaki missed the meeting for a second time. On Tuesday Wamalwa accused “some people” of attempting to sabotage preparations for the polls.

“There was an anxiety and finger pointing that had started creeping in. The culprits I had in mind were actually the Treasury,” said Wamalwa who had promised to name the saboteurs.

Health Care, ID management, iris, modality

What is the best biometric?

I often get asked what is the best biometric modality.

The article below is a good example of why the answer is always, “That depends; what are you trying to accomplish?”

Eye of the Beholder: How Iris Biometrics Could Help Solve Hospital Patient ID Problems (Becker’s Hospital Review)

One of the other major benefits, according to Mr. Powe, is the hands-off approach — literally. Patients do not have to touch any equipment with an iris scan, which helps hospitals in their infection control efforts.

“Since you don’t have to touch it, it’s an infection control measure,” Mr. Powe says. “A lot of people don’t come to the hospital because they are healthy. With palm scanning, you put your hand down, then sanitize it and clean it to keep someone from passing infections. But that’s not the case here. You just sit in a chair, line your eyes up with a camera, take the picture and you’re done.”

air travel, ID management, travel

UAE: Travel without boarding pass

Dubai: Biometric self-boarding, self bag drops and ‘bagtrac’ smartphone applications — a host of new technologies will change the face of air travel in the region. (Gulf News)

“Soon you won’t need your boarding pass,” said Andre Oeyen, Director of Biometric Business Development, Government and Security Solutions at SITA, a global air transport communications and information technology major.

Speaking to XPRESS on the sidelines of the ICT Aviation Forum in Dubai on Tuesday, he said: “We are in talks with airlines and airports in the region to launch biometric self-boarding in the first half of 2013.”

However, he did not specify the names of the airlines or airports. He said biometrics is already being used for border management and immigration in Dubai, and if extended to boarding, it will be the next dimension.

Faster please.

ID management, law enforcement, prisons

Biometrics in Jail Management

Richmond County jailers like new fingerprint technology (Augusta Chronicle)

In July, a faster fingerprint system called RapidID was installed, and heavy-duty wristbands began being used. Both have been helpful in preventing the wrong person from being released, and catching criminals claiming to be someone else.

In January, Devontae Romeo Roberts was released by mistake when he switched wristbands with another inmate, Brett Corey Counts. Roberts was found two days later and re-committed with additional charges.

Keeping the wrong person from being released is a big biometric application in jails, but it’s hardly the only one. Prisons also dispense medication, keep track of hours worked and run commissaries.

corruption, government, ID management, poverty, transparency, welfare

India: West Bengal state adopts biometric ID for jobs program

Indian State Spends USD 18.5 mil on ICT in Welfare Scheme (Future Gov) 
ICT = Information and communications technology

On the 7th of September, the West Bengal state government in India confirmed a Rs. 103-crore (US$18.5 million) contract for end-to-end ICT services to streamline the e-governance applications of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in West Bengal.

MGNREGS, the central government’s flagship social welfare programme, guarantees a minimum of 100 days of employment every year to adult members of rural households who are willing to perform public-service manual labour at minimum wage.

Increasing transparency and efficiency in social programs is important to maintaining their legitimacy amidst allegations of corruption. Biometrics can help and have been deployed successfully to meet identical goals in Andhra Pradesh.

face, FBI, government, ID management, industry, payments

Trickle Down Security

Kind of like GPS.

FBI’s Facial Recognition Program: Better Security Through Biometrics. The FBI’s facial recognition technology is a boon for law enforcement–and perhaps soon for enterprise and consumer security as well. (Information Week)

An important and often overlooked topic broached in the article is whether the more profound applications of biometric ID management technologies will be in commercial processes rather than law enforcement.

Deciding whether or not to incarcerate someone is very different than deciding whether to transfer property from a store owner to a customer. Naturally, different standards of identification and ID certainty will apply. I continue to think that private sector application of biometrics will eventually dwarf deployments in the public sector because in the private sector biometrics simply have to help people confront existing challenges better than the status quo coping mechanism. In the ultimate law enforcement setting, a court of law, they have to clear a standard that becomes less actuarial and more closely approximate of perfection in individual circumstances.

credit card, government, ID assurance, ID management, payments

Biometrics and the Future of Payments

One of these two articles talks about payments to the individual from a source of income, the other talks about payments from an individual to a retail establishment — in this case a convenience store. The organizations on both sides of the individual envision adopting biometric identity management techniques as a growing part of payment authentication.

MasterCard notes growing trend in Govt Adoption of Electronic Payments (IndiaInfoline)

“By supporting governments around the world with electronic payment programs we are helping save money and improve efficiencies, but more importantly, together we are opening up a world of inclusion for those who have previously not had access to traditional financial services,” said Tim Murphy, Chief Products Officer of MasterCard Worldwide.

SASSA recipients are now able to use debit cards, issued by Net1 and Grindrod Bank, to pay for goods and to check their account balances free of charge. A key feature of the card is biometric functionality used to identify grant recipients using unique identifiers such as fingerprints, facial and voice recognition to prevent stolen card usage. The new system is already dramatically reducing SASSA’s operating costs and is expected to save the government more than ZAR3 billion (USD 360 million) over the next five years.

Next-Generation Tech Gains Traction (Convenience Store News)

Payment Systems & Automation
In-store payment systems for the majority of c-store chains include credit and debit (96 percent), prepaid/stored value card (48.4 percent) and electronic benefits transfer (42.2 percent). Less popular are electronic check verification, used by 32.8 percent of chains and continuing to decrease in popularity every year, and radio frequency identification (RFID) or contactless cards, adopted by 17.2 percent. Also, only 3.1 percent report using self-checkout and just 1.6 percent say they have biometric payment technology.

However, when asked what technology c-store retailers plan to implement in the next one to three years, RFID/contactless tops the list, with 12.5 percent contemplating the technology, followed by self-checkout (10.9 percent) and biometric payment (10.9 percent).

I highly recommend the Convenience Store News article. It’s full of charts and tables and it really gives the reader an appreciation for the complexity and efficiency required in that market. In order to be convenient, the stores have to be small all other decisions flow from there.

government, ID, ID assurance, ID management, industry, NIST, standards

National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) Background and Progress Report

ID management: A matter of trust (Federal Computer Week)

In April 2011, the Obama administration launched a plan called the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) to encourage the private sector to develop, with federal support and input, online ID and authentication systems that people could use and government agencies, other organizations and commercial players could accept without each needing to create their own vetting systems.
…
At this point, NSTIC supporters are making headway, though perhaps not in a headline-grabbing way. Earlier this month, the Identity Ecosystem Steering Group, a federally supported committee led by the private sector that will guide creation of NSTIC-style systems, met for the first time in Chicago to hash out plans for addressing privacy, standards, usability, contracts and other key components.

National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) is being run by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to encourage the development and adoption of standards for ID management. The recent Apple-Amazon hack points to why this is important.

In an environment where everyone has to create their own ID management system, it is inevitable that organizations will create exploitable gaps in the way they emphasize the importance of information. In this case, Amazon (like many other companies, just check your restaurant receipt) treated the last four numbers of a credit card as non-secure information, while Apple used the same information for logical access control.

Initiatives like NSTIC hope to facilitate companies and government agencies to work through ways to make this kind of thing less likely.

Ghana, ghost, ID management, management, technology

Technology and Management working together can help improve public payments system.

What I like about this article is the juxtaposition of the technological and managerial aspects of dealing with difficult problems.

Ghana loses millions in multiple salary payments (Modern Ghana)

In its response to the issue raised by the Auditor-General, the management of the CAGD said “the observation is noted and CAGD will investigate and take necessary action. In general, the ongoing biometric registration of active employees and pensioners will help address some of the payroll issues”.
…
The Auditor-General also called for an effective supervision of data entry officers to minimise the risk of payroll frauds and errors.

Biometrics give able managers a powerful new tool and an opportunity to realize significant returns on technology investment (ROI) but they can’t manage anything by themselves.

Biometric identity management is about people.