Law Enforcement Technology

MAR 2015

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www.officer.com March 2015 Law Enforcement Technology 27 Andrew Finn, with the Wilson Center—a Washington think tank named for Pres. Woodrow Wilson— believes the bridge will find its funding. "Ninety-seven percent of the focus is on the problem of immigration, which of course is not a problem with Canada. The big thing coming up is the infra- structure problem." And that makes the bridge even more of a priority. Finn, an attorney, says he's read the contract between the U.S. and Canada concerning the new center/bridge and was surprised with the terms. "According to the contract, the U.S. is under no obligation to pay for this. I have no idea why Canada would agree," he says. However, Finn believes that the U.S. will ante up some of the money, even if it isn't obligated to do so. "I know there are some people (in U.S. government) sympathetic to the bridge," he says. But the funding is caught up in an immigration bill. With Congress at odds with the White House, it remains to be seen whether or not the $250 million due from the U.S. to complete the project will be appropriated. "My guess is that something will be done there," Finn says of the busiest, by volume, car-crossing in the world. The view from the other side The bridge will house state-of-the-art biometric technology that will speed up the process of moving between the two borders and — officials hope — also prevent potential terrorists from gaining entry to either country and/ or moving weapons. Bill Anderson, a professor at the University of Windsor and director of the university-based Cross Border Institute, a think tank specializing in border issues, says that aside from terrorism issues, Canadians are more concerned with the move- ment of firearms and cigarettes across their border. "What's available in one country is illegal in another," Anderson says. He points out that both countries have bor- der issues peculiar to their own needs and situation, but share an abiding interest in the integrity of the border and a desire to catch potential terrorism before it can be acted upon. Targeted checks will be a major component to help detect terrorist activity. "Random searches are much less likely to turn up anything (of value), while in targeted searches by defini- tion you are trying to identify people who are higher risk. The idea of target- ing is to make searching more produc- tive," he says. Anderson agrees that both countries' laws permit targeted searches at the border, even though the same type of targeting might constitute "profiling" and those searches are under fire when used on city streets. "It's a difficult issue and one that has to be handled care- fully," he says. When it comes to using biometric technology, Anderson says one of the biggest issues border officials face will be to win over the public. "The public associates being fingerprinted with criminal activity, doing something wrong." As for iris scanning technol- ogy, he says "There's something creepy about looking inside your eyeball. People are uncomfortable with it." Finn of the Wilson Center agrees Biometrics at a glance Simple definition: Metrics as they relate to human characteristics, but the term can also describe the process itself. There are more than one type of biometric, including fingerprints and palm prints, irises, signatures, facial recognition patterns, voice pat- terns and DNA. Old-fashioned fingerprint techniques, i.e. inked fingerprints rolled on a print card and then classified, is a form of biometric that has been in use in the U.S. for decades. The FBI is involved in several fingerprint biometric program initiatives with world partners, including the Foreign Fingerprint Exchange, which both harvests and provides biometric samples with foreign part- ners; the Flyaway Program, which assists with on- site fingerprint identification; and the Quick Capture Program, a tool for onsite investigators that allows for biometric comparison with more than 81 million records. Like fingerprints, any biometric identification attempt can only work if the individual from whom the sample is collected is already in the system. Biometric systems aren't simply for government agencies and high-tech corporations: Disney uses biometric technology to identify season ticket holders. Facial recognition biometrics depend on sameness; they may fail to identify someone whose face has changed due to age or the addition or change of their hair and other removable or easily alterable features, such as glasses. On the plus side, iris biometrics can hold a stable image for a very long time, but have one distinct drawback in that they can't be verified by a human operator.

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