The 2015 funding is $22 million greater than 2014. The appropriation was rather thin on documentation, but a large chunk of that money is likely going to boost the already impressive capabilities of the DHS' biometric surveillance system. The DHS maintains a massive database of biometric information gathered over the last several years. DHS currently grabs biometric data from federal, state and local governments 30,000 times daily to feed its ever-growing data files.
The massive anonymous surveillance of Americans has a large price-tag.
DHS biometric program gets $250 million from Senate
A Senate subcommittee this week
approved a request from the United States Department of Homeland
Security for nearly a quarter-of-a-billion dollars to be used on a
state-of-the-art biometric system.
On Tuesday, the Senate Appropriations
Subcommittee on DHS green-lighted more than $47 billion to go towards
the agency as part of a request made for funding in fiscal year 2015.
According to a statement published
later that day by Sen. Barbara Mikulski, the chairwoman of the
committee on appropriations, a significant chunk of that sum will go
towards increasing the efforts of DHS to document persons coming in
and out of the US by using high-tech biometric technology that
captures unique features from individuals and then scours massive
databases for more information pertaining to those persons. If all
goes as planned, upgrades to DHS’s biometric system will allow not
only for the vast collection of this information, but will ensure
that the details are easily shared among federal agencies of various
sorts.
“The bill provides $249 million for
the Office of Biometric Identity Management, $2 million below the
request and$22 million above fiscal year 2014,” the statement reads
in part. “This funding helps assure national security, public
safety and the integrity of our immigration laws.”
“By sharing real-time biometric and
identity data between the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice,
Defense and State we can monitor who legally enters and exits the
country,” the statement continues.
Earlier this month on the Biometric
Update website, writer Rawlson King explained how the OBIM’s
functions have expanded immensely during the last decade. Although
visitors to the US who required a visa inserted in their passport
were the only ones who had their biometric data stored by the DHS as
of 2004, King wrote, since 2009 most non-US citizens, including
lawful permanent residents, have had to adhere to the rules of the
program administered by the OBIM.
“Biometrics collected by OBIM is
linked to specific biographic data in order to establish and verify a
person’s identity. With each encounter, from applying for a visa to
seeking immigration benefits to entering the US, OBIM checks a
person’s biometrics against a watch list of known or suspected
terrorists, criminals and immigration violators,” King wrote.
The budget request from DHS is absent
details about how the $249 million will specifically be used, but
researchers at Security Debrief concluded previously that that the
cost of implementing the latest biometric technology at the top 50 US
airports and seaports would could roughly double that — between
$400 million and $600 million — according to that report.
New cost analysis could soon reveal a
cheaper price tag, though: earlier this month, the FCW federal
technology website reported that US Customs and Border Protection is
preparing within weeks to open a new facility outside of Washington,
DC that will test devices that record biometric data from travelers
exiting the country, according to CBP Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske.
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