The FBI would like to spend about a billion dollars — that’s $1,000,000,000, one thousand million dollars — “to create a massive computer database of people’s physical characteristics, all part of an effort the bureau says to better identify criminals and terrorists.” They admit that among other things, the efficacy and cost “will depend on how quickly technology is perfected.”
By way of disclaimer, I do not mind the fact that my fingerprints had to be sent to the FBI to obtain a professional license. That is a legitimate protection to the public. But — according to everything I have read — once I was cleared as Not A Criminal, the FBI destroyed their copy. Have no fear, Gil Grissom can still get a copy from the State of Nevada should something awful happen to me.
Nevertheless, the FBI does not need a huge database of fingerprints, palm prints, eye scans, and tattoos. The idea that terrorists would be caught using such data is unproven if not outright spurious. The last “terrorist” we caught using biometric data turned out not to have even been in the same country as the bomb he allegedly planted.
Furthermore, they admit up front that the technology to make it all work does not yet exist. Keep in mind that fingerprint scanners are only about 98-99% accurate. That’s fine when you’re scanning a dozen people who might have been near a crime scene, but not nearly good enough when you have millions of samples from random people across the country. For reference, fingerprints are the most accurate to scan biometric data widely available.
As if that were not enough, there are too many issues related to privacy, the 4th and 5th Amendments, and civil liberties. This is even more true when one considers that “The Bush administration has failed to nominate any candidates to a newly empowered privacy and civil-liberties commission. This leaves the board without any members….”
So we’re talking about spending a billion dollars on a huge database, using technology that is not yet accurate enough to do the job, with very likely no oversight whatsoever. Sounds like a bad idea to me.