Biometrics essential to winning war on terror

Lani Hay

In a conversation with GSN:Government Security News at our headquarters in New York City, Lani Hay spoke about the future of biometrics in fighting the global war on terror.

“We used to have, in conventional warfare, a line where the bad guys were on one side and we were on the good guys’ side,” she said. “But now we are fighting in urban environments, so the lines aren’t as defined as they used to be. We are helping the armed forces re-think how they approach warfare.”

Hay is the president and CEO of Lanmark Technology, Inc., of Vienna, VA, a company that works primarily with the government in providing a full range of information technology services and telecommunication solutions.

“And the most exciting work we are doing right now is in the biometrics space,” she added.

“Right now, we have a terrorist watch list based on people’s names. If you have your name on the watch list what are you going to do? Change your name? So, we are trying to develop the watch list based on biometrics.

“We have success stories in capturing biometrics from Iraq and Afghanistan, but we’re trying to expand the program, so it covers all parts of the world because the terrorists aren’t just coming from Afghanistan and Iraq, but also from Africa, South America and Asia.”

Hay believes biometrics will play a huge role in winning the fight against terrorism in the future.

“First of all, biometrics is going to help us consolidate our resources. For instance, we had a guy that the FBI, CIA and State Department (DoS) were all chasing. But he actually had 33 different identities, so we had all our resources chasing 33 different people. When we actually captured the person, we were able to cross-reference all intelligence and biometrics data and find out that it was actually one person.

“It happens a lot. It’s so easy to pick up someone else’s identity, so the only way you can have a positive match is through biometrics. So that is your unique individual tracking.

“I think biometrics is going to have a lot to do with how we fight wars in the future. It will help us consolidate the information we have on people and consolidate bits and pieces into one master profile for people,” Hay told GSN.

“It’s all about taking information, bringing it together and streamlining it,” she noted.

But the biggest problem with biometrics, Hay told GSN, is getting lawmakers interested and involved.

“The interesting thing is a lot of people say, ‘Don’t we have this kind of technology already?’ Yes, it’s out there, but there are other programs taking precedence. We only have the program funded for the Iraq and Afghanistan region, so what my company is trying to do is help the Defense Intelligence Agency go to Congress and say, ‘Hey, this is really important. We need to build this worldwide global biometrics database of all the bad guys.’

“If Congress was funding biometrics, things like the attempted Christmas Day bombing wouldn’t have ever happened,” Hay believes. “If we were properly analyzing the biometrics data and feeding it to the right agencies -- like DHS and DoS -- that guy would have never even been given a visa from the State Department to enter the United States in the first place,” she added.

But biometric data does not just help the troops overseas. It also aids local and state law enforcement agencies in the United States. Hay described a situation in which her company was able to get processed biometric data to the border patrol in California, allowing authorities to apprehend the suspect as he crossed into the U.S.

“We have had a lot of success from this really minimally-funded program, so I believe we should expand it. Then we could catch a lot more people before an incident happens.”