News and insight into biometric identification and authentication

Biometric border protection could thwart future Middle East assassinations

Monday, February 22, 2010

In the wake of the assassination of Hamas official Mahmoud Mabhouh, experts have been looking at how biometric checkpoints at border entries could thwart future attempts before they can even be attempted, according to a Los Angeles Times article.

Despite the recommendations of security experts that requiring biometric samples upon entry into a country would greatly increase the chances of catching known terrorists and assassins, privacy groups have continued to cite the creation of biometric population databases as too risky.


Such was the case with Israel’s attempts to begin a national biometric ID program. With privacy advocate groups such as NO2BIO successfully squashing attempts by the government to create such a program, Israel has taken slower steps towards the program by creating a voluntary two-year trial.

Whether or not the program will garner enough support to be put in effect across the country, many officials believe that as biometric systems continue to see more border protection adoption and information sharing increases, organized assassinations such as that of Mabhouh will be less and less likely to occur.

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Morpho announced that Australia’s Customs and Border Protection Service signed a five year agreement for service of the SmartGate automated biometric security checkpoint solution.

The SmartGate technology operates in real-time utilizing facial recognition hardware that compares the captured data of a traveler to the data contained on the chip embedded on his e-passport. Australian Customs and Border Protection Service says that implementation of Morpho’s solution has proven to be a successful way for Australian Border Protection agents to cope with growing traveler numbers while improving traveler experience at borders and maintaining the high-levels of security they demand.  

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CBP denies report

A Canadian man uses a scanned image of his passport from his iPad to get past Customer and Border Protection officials, according to a report from the AP.

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The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency is working together with Unisys Corp. on a Land Border Integration (LBI) project to deploy one of the first pedestrian border crossings in El Paso, Texas.

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The UK Border Agency has announced intentions to require applicants applying for six-month stays from outside the European Economic Area to use biometric residency permits starting at the end of February 2012, according to an HR Magazine article.

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Human recognition Systems announced a partnership with the Olive Group, a provider of safety, security and technology solutions, that will see the Olive Group distributing HRS’s solutions in the Middle East and North Africa regions.

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The European Association for Biometrics (EAB) is focusing on a goal of driving the research and development of biometrics and building the future of the industry around a concern for end-user privacy protection.

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