Biometrics help soldiers in Iraq

While terrorists continue to run, America’s armed forces are making it harder for them to hide because of a growing biometrics database. Past, current, and future technology is used, much of it by adapting commercial off-the-shelf equipment. “There’s always a better mousetrap that comes along,” said Kathy DeBolt, chief of the Language and Technology Office at the U.S. Army’s Fort Huachuca Intelligence Center. AZBiz’s Bill Hess writes that one of the newer traps is a hand-held device used to take a person’s fingerprints, scan an individual’s irises, and take a photo of a face. DeBolt said that if a “red light comes on,” that person may be wanted. The device is used at the squad level in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Red means a person is potentially really dangerous to our national security,” she said. The device, which is the size of an old Polaroid camera, rapidly searches stored information, allowing a group of about ten soldiers to determine if a person is being sought. Called the Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment — or HIIDE — the device also can be used to input information on a person into a database, DeBolt said. As technology progresses, items such as HIIDE get “smaller and we can put more things on it,” she said. One system currently costs about $10,000.

In May 2001 she was a major, and at the time, something was needed in Bosnia to keep track of those who could have caused problems by moving from one installation to another. Little did she and others know, the initial thought of using biometrics would become critical four months later when terrorists attacked on 9/11. Working out of what was then quaintly called the “Bat Cave,” a small area in a building on post with a team of six people, DeBolt saw emphasis and manpower increase as the war on terrorism expanded. Today, about sixty people are involved in the office, helping in the development and testing of biometrics equipment to add newer, better, and faster programs to counter terrorists around the world, said DeBolt, who retired from the Army as a lieutenant colonel.

One of the initial devices to come out of the think tank and research and development office was the BAT — Biometrics Automated Toolset — which hooked up a camera, fingerprint device, and a bulky iris scanner to a computer. As capabilities changed, the attachments became smaller, though it still