An HS Daily Wire conversation with Walter Hamilton of the International Biometrics Industry Association (IBIA)
not know, the ones we haven’t seen before, who have not stood for background checks.
Hamilton: That could be beneficial. But there’s a counterargument to it. If someone is a would-be terrorist, or wants to recruit someone to do harm, all he has to do is find someone who doesn’t have a record, who doesn’t have a background that would show up negative on a background check. That individual would have no trouble applying for and obtaining a credential, and enjoying privileged movement. There’s a flip side to just about everything.
DW: In a larger context, will you relate this area of concern to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Hamilton: Well, one of the problems we have is, we can’t fight a conventional war against terrorists. This is an asymmetric warfare environment in which you don’t know who the foe is. They don’t wear uniforms. They don’t speak a different language from the population where they’re embedded and you can’t tell who’s who. The only technology that might help you separate the good from the bad is - guess what?
DW: A wild guess. Biometrics.
Hamilton: Exactly right. Look at the city of Fallujah [in the Iraqi province of Al Anbar]. When’s the last time you heard about a terrorist incident involving significant loss of life in Fallujah?
DW: Quite some time.
Hamilton: Over a year, actually. And why’s that? After the second battle of Fallujah, in December 2004, the Marines and the coalition forces inventoried the population and enrolled the legitimate residents into a biometric data base. The people moving into and out of Fallujah can now be checked, at staffed entry points, against a list of legitimate residents using biometrics. Officials need no longer rely on faked ID’s and forged documents but on something that can’t be forged - biometrics.
We all know that the core population in these communities are not terrorists. But the only way to prevent terrorist infiltration into the community is with a biometric system. And one can assume that the law-abiding residents of Fallujah are very happy to supply their biometric samples for those occasions when they have to enter and leave the community. They want to be safe.
DW: Will you say something about the issue of privacy vis-à-vis biometrics, as might occur to people with less pressing concerns about personal safety?
Hamilton: If the issue is invasion of privacy, it’s not biometrics that you need to be concerned about, and