The Army is establishing a new biometrics program – akin to ones used by civilian law enforcement – to help soldiers and members of the other armed services identify and track friends and foes.
Army Secretary Christine E. Wormuth signed a directive last month establishing the program. As the Pentagon’s lead agent in biometrics applications, the Army will be responsible for collecting, storing and sharing the information it collects.
“The directive covers employment of biometric capabilities [and] operational actions … from collection, matching, storing, sharing, analyzing, providing, and more importantly, deciding and acting,” said Russell Wilson, the policy and engagements lead at the Defense Forensics and Biometrics Agency. “It does that across the warfighter functions to facilitate lethal and non-lethal effects and complete Army missions.”
The armed services’ use of biometrics is not new. The first such related policies came out in 2008. The latest iteration reflects a department-wide recognition of the subject’s importance and usefulness.
“[Biometric data] accurately identifies adversaries and enemies in real time, while verifying [them] from neutral identities with confidence,” Wilson said. “[It] helps the Army deny threat anonymity, which can prove critical in complex environments like urban defense areas. It allows commanders to use the insights to better understand how to detect threat collusion.”
The process entails service members collecting relevant data during their missions and forwarding it to the biometrics office, which would categorize and store it. The information would then be available to not only members of the armed forces, but agencies like the FBI and Department of Homeland Security as well. The protocol would take privacy issues into consideration as well.
“When it’s done right, we’ll be able to identify people who are definitely trying to do [service members] harm,” Wilson said. “The best thing we can do is make sure we do it properly.”
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