DHS Calls For More Biometrics

Nov 1, 2004 12:00 PM

Atop Department of Homeland Security official has challenged the biometrics industry to devise more ways to extend its technologies to protect the United States against sneak attacks.

Paul McHale, assistant secretary of defense for the Department of Homeland Security, said his wish list includes biometric identification technology that could screen the crews of cargo ships long before their vessels enter U.S. ports and that could check workers at sensitive plants building products used by the military.

“Our enemies are brutal, clever and no longer in uniform,” McHale said at a day-long conference in San Francisco. “I believe that in identifying these 21st century enemies, biometrics can play an extremely important role.”

The biometric industry faces some of the same issues of accuracy, scalability, cost effectiveness and privacy that it did 30 years ago, James Wayman, an industry expert and director of San Jose State University's Biometric Identification Research Program, told The San Francisco Chronicle.

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