BiometricsFBI’s biometric data center key to identifying Jihadi John
The FBI is unlikely to release details of how, working with allies in the United Kingdom, it managed to accomplish the task of identifying “Jihadi John” with only video footage of the suspect’s hidden face and a voice with a British accent. Identifying Mohammed Emwazi, a Kuwaiti-born, British-educated man in his mid-20s, was likely done at the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division(CJIS), which houses the bureau’s Biometric Center of Excellence(BCE). At BCE, the FBI uses the $1.2 billion dollar Next Generation Identification(NGI) software to scan photos, aliases, physical traits, fingerprints, and voiceprints. The software is interoperable with the Pentagon’s Automated Biometric Identification System(ABIS) and DHS’s Automated Biometric Identification System(IDENT).
Last week, British security authorities inthe and identified “Jihadi John,” the Islamic State (ISIS) soldier who executed several hostages on camera, as Mohammed Emwazi, a Kuwaiti-born, British-educated man in his mid-20s. The FBI has refused to comment on the identity of Jihadi John, but last September FBI director James Comey announced thatEmwazi had been identified.
The agency is unlikely to release details of how, working with allies in the United Kingdom, it managed to accomplish the task with only video footage of the suspect’s hidden face and a voice with a British accent, but Defense One reports that FBI collaborations with the Defense Department would have played a part in the discovery.
The FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division (CJIS) houses the bureau’s Biometric Center of Excellence (BCE), which plays a key role in utilizing all of the biometric data which comes into the FBI’s possession. “Bottom line for us … if any of our divisions, whether it be our counterterrorism division, our criminal division, if at any time during their investigations they develop biometrics … they submit it through our system,” Stephen L. Morris, assistant director of the CJIS, told Defense One. In terms of identifying Jihadi John, “I’m not going to tell you how we did it,” he said, but added “You have to have something to search … you can have images with faces but if you’re not capturing it in the right way, if there’s not data in that image to make a comparison, it’s just not useful.”
At BCE, the FBI uses the $1.2 billion dollar Next Generation Identification (NGI) software to scan photos, aliases, physical traits, fingerprints, and voiceprints. The software is interoperable with the Pentagon’s Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) and DHS’s Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT). The Pentagon, through its operations overseas, has acquired an extensive library of biometric signatures that can be scanned across existing and new data. “I can’t speak enough about our relationship with the Department of Defense. After 9/11, our mission in life changed. It was all about national security, our partnership with DHS and DOD —to say it expanded is an understatement,” Morris said.
The partnership between the Pentagon and the FBI is expected to further evolve in coming months as the FBI opens a $328 million, 360,000-square foot Biometric Technology Center next to the CJIS campus. The Pentagon will operate in roughly 40,000 square feet of the new building, which will consolidate the FBI’s biometric workers and operations.
“Anything and everything we do will be run out of that building,” said Morris.
