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Coast Guard expands biometrics program

Not unlike the service itself, the Coast Guard biometrics program is in a state of transition.

The service has been using biometric scanners on a pilot basis since 2006 in the Mona Passage near Puerto Rico to identify repeat offenders attempting to enter the country illegally. The results have been so successful the program has expanded into the Straits of Florida and is being used to track illegal Haitian migrants. Now Coast Guard leaders are looking at expanding the program to other border areas, Commandant Adm. Thad Allen said.

“We are transitioning into a steady state,” Allen said. “We want that to be part of our doctrine and how we do at-sea boardings.”

The biometrics-at-sea system is based around a $3,000 hand-held unit about the size of a football used to collect one or two fingerprints and take a digital picture.

Coast Guardsmen download the information from the reader and the name the migrant gives onto a laptop, which sends an e-mail via satellite link to the United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology database. It responds within three to five minutes and will either add the new person’s information or report a match. The database could show that a migrant has an arrest record, is on a terrorist watch list, has entered or tried to enter the U.S. before, or other details, officials said.

Cmdr. Claudia Camp, branch chief for current law enforcement operations in District 7, said before the use of biometrics, cutter crews followed what became known as the “catch-and-release” plan.

According to a recent Coast Guard acquisition newsletter, there were “virtually no arrests of illegal migrants for repeat offense or other criminal activity” in the seven years prior to the launch of the pilot program. Between fiscal 2000 and 2008, the Coast Guard interdicted 31,192 Haitian and Dominican migrants in or around the Mona Passage.

“In fiscal year 2007 alone, biometric technology helped reduce successful illegal migrant landings from 5,552 in 2006 to 5,046 (a better than 9 percent reduction), and helped detain more than 72 individuals for prosecution,” according to the newsletter.

Although the reduction cannot be attributed solely to the new technology, Camp said there is no doubt it is a significant factor. Still, there are some improvements that need to be made. Chief among those are improvements to technology and a universal database that can pull prints from any law enforcement system, Allen said.

“I’d say right now we are dealing with a new millennium thought and with 1990 technology. The gear is great that we have out there, but it could be better, and it could be better suited for the maritime environment,” Camp said. “Originally, this stuff was not designed to be taken out to sea. We are trying to squeeze all that information we gain through pretty narrow bandwidths.”

Allen said the service would like to move from a two-fingerprint scan system to a 10-fingerprint setup, which would be more accurate and similar to the system used in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility.

Someday, fingerprints from a known terrorist hideout could be put into a universal database, Allen said, and Coast Guard members using biometric scanners would be able to call up those prints to check whether someone trying to enter the country is a terrorist.

“We have raised the issues and we are talking about it. As we move between the changes of administrations, this is something we want to stay focused on,” Allen said. “It’s a very important work in progress.”