Lawmakers debate merits of fingerprints

Lawmakers seeking information on the relative merits of fingerprints and facial images as biometric identifiers concluded a hearing last week by recommending to officials at the State and Homeland Security departments that fingerprints be used as the primary identifier in e-passports.

State Department officials are releasing the first completely redesigned passport in more than a decade. The e-passports include a digital photograph of the holder on the first inside page and a biometric chip containing the holder's biographical data and digital photo. The passports contain no fingerprints.

A digital photo that has been tampered with is fairly easy to detect, said Frank Moss, deputy assistant secretary for consular affairs at State. He testified before the House Homeland Security Committee's Economic Security, Infrastructure Protection and Cybersecurity Subcommittee.

But some lawmakers said digital photos still need to be inspected by a person. Customs and Border Protection officers must manually inspect digital photos because they cannot be verified electronically against terrorist databases, said Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.), chairman of the committee. Using anything other than fingerprints as a biometric safeguard is useless because the only existing terrorist-detection databases use fingerprints, he said.

Others noted that fingerprint databases are the cornerstone of border screening. Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.), the subcommittee's chairman, said relying on individuals' eyesight to verify identity is likely to result in errors.

"If you've got fingerprints, you've got them dead to rights," he said. "Fingerprints are the way to go."

Elaine Dezenski, acting assistant secretary of DHS' Border and Transportation Security Directorate, noted that international travelers get their fingerprints taken as part of the visa-application process. Travelers must also give two fingerprints when they undergo screening through the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology program.

Information security experts at the National Institute of Standards and Technology say fingerprint systems are more accurate than facial-recognition ones. Martin Herman, chief of the Information Access Division in NIST's Information Technology Laboratory, said NIST officials reached that conclusion based on tests conducted in 2002 with the most recent data available, he said.

For cultural and political reasons, however, fingerprints have a disadvantage compared with facial images. Getting fingerprinted is seen as being booked for a crime, Dezenski said, which is why the International Civil Aviation Organization adopted facial-recognition technology in May 2003 as the primary biometric identifier in travel documents.

One expert testified that the United States should move all of its fingerprint-identification programs to 10-print identification. C. Stewart Verdery Jr., an adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan think tank, endorsed 10-print identification.

Verdery also recommended that the United States match the European Union in requiring fingerprints on passports.