Dr Darko Trifunovic - FBI wants palm prints, eye scans, tattoo mapping

CNN ^ | Kelli Arena and Carol Cratty

[Isaac972]

he FBI is gearing up to create a massive computer database of people's physical characteristics, all part of an effort the bureau says to better identify criminals and terrorists. But it's an issue that raises major privacy concerns -- what one civil liberties expert says should concern all Americans.

The bureau is expected to announce in coming days the awarding of a $1 billion, 10-year contract to help create the database that will compile an array of biometric information -- from palm prints to eye scans.

Kimberly Del Greco, the FBI's Biometric Services section chief, said adding to the database is "important to protect the borders to keep the terrorists out, protect our citizens, our neighbors, our children so they can have good jobs, and have a safe country to live in."

But it's unnerving to privacy experts.

"It's the beginning of the surveillance society where you can be tracked anywhere, any time and all your movements, and eventually all your activities will be tracked and noted and correlated," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Technology and Liberty Project. The FBI already has 55 million sets of fingerprints on file. In coming years, the bureau wants to compare palm prints, scars and tattoos, iris eye patterns, and facial shapes. The idea is to combine various pieces of biometric information to positively identify a potential suspect. "Fingerprints will still be the big player," Bush, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division, told CNN.

But he added, "Whatever the biometric that comes down the road, we need to be able to plug that in and play."

First up, he said, are palm prints. The FBI has already begun collecting images and hopes to soon use these as an additional means of making identifications.

[svcw]

When last my daughter, son in law and two grandkids came to visit they were pulled aside for special screening because of my grandsons name.
He is three.
Is this what we have to look forward to? The FBI with more and more information becoming more and more paranoid?

[weegee]

The FBI isn’t good at solving cases, they are good at proving cases when someone gives them the name.

When are they going to go from noting everyone’s tattoos from head to toe to giving us all our own unique identifying number...

[weegee]

“The idea is to combine various pieces of biometric information to positively identify a potential suspect.”

The problem is that EVERYONE is first considered as suspect (on no evidence) and made to prove his innocence. On the basis of no evidence (no witness, no timetable, nothing), anyone in the database will be compared to “known” evidence. If you were ever there, you are a suspect.

Ask Richard Jewell how easy it is to live down the media spotlight when the FBI leaks your name.