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Biometrics in Airports 413

Posted by michael from the only-outlaws-will-wear-sunglasses dept.
asv108 writes: "Extremetech has an article by renowned security expert Bruce Schneier about why face recognition in public places such as airports is not a good idea." Schneier is being generous - real world results show that facial recognition systems are a lot less than 99.99% accurate even under laboratory conditions (people posing for the camera under ideal lighting).
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Biometrics in Airports More

Biometrics in Airports

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  • Enemy of the State? (Score:3, Funny)

    by govtcheez ( 524087 ) <govtcheez03@hotmail.com> on Friday September 28, 2001 @10:00AM (#2363336) Homepage
    C'mon, Enemy of the State showed us that not only should they be advanced enough to give a definite ID, the single camera should be able to pan around the person, zoom in, and even show you the label on their T-shirt...

  • Biometrics are coming.... (Score:4, Informative)

    by baptiste ( 256004 ) <mike@baptis[ ]us ['te.' in gap]> on Friday September 28, 2001 @10:01AM (#2363337) Homepage Journal
    Even if face recognition doesn't 'fly' you can bet we'll see more and more of this stuff at airports and elsewhere.

    For example - would you agree to putting your thumb on a fingerprint scanner at teh jetway entrance before you got on the plane? Retinal scan? The idea of the airlines having fingerprints for every passenger is pretty scary - but banks and many stores fingerprint when you use/cash checks. What level of this type of stuff will we accept? At what cost?

    But then - the best biometric system in the world wouldn't have stopped the WTC attack - the hijackers were passengers with tickets and many used their real names anyway so.... I fear we'll find many liberties and the like given up in the name of security that really won't help that much.

    • Banks and many stores fingerprint when you use /cash checks

      Where the hell are you doing your banking??? I sure as hell would NEVER give my bank my fingerprints, let alone Joe sixpack running the general store. I have no idea where you're living, but I'd suggest moving.

      • Re:Biometrics are coming.... (Score:4, Informative)

        by wiredog ( 43288 ) on Friday September 28, 2001 @10:18AM (#2363406) Journal
        Most banks require a fingerprint on a check that is being cashed if you don't have an account with them. If the check turns out to be forged, the bank gives it to the police, who now have the fingerprint of the forger.
        • I've never heard of this type of thing in my life.
          • You cash your checks at a bank where you have an account, or you live outside the US. It's been going on here for a couple of years.
          • This thread is a little misleading. The prints required at banks (as far as I've seen, that is) are quick thumbprints using colorless ink (it reacts with a chemical on the paper they put it on, I assume.) There's a little ink pad by each teller window. It's as quick as signing a form, and no less intrusive, in my opinion. It's not like they take you into the back room for a full set of black, inky prints on one of those FBI cards.
        • Thumb print out here in Oregon.
          They've been doing it since at least 1995.
      • This is common practice all over Texas now. There's not a convenience store in all of Amarillo that doesn't have inkpad right next to the cash register so that they can tag all the checks they get.

        Wal-Mart does it off and on, although they run out of ink fairly quickly.

        Of course its funny to refuse to do it, and see how the cashiers react.
    • The photos of the hijackers were on file. And they were very good ones too, not those taken from 1000 yards away. If we had put a face recognition system whereby everyone who boards a plane is scanned and compared to terrorist photos on file we may very well have prevented it. Ditto for scanning faces during entry into the US.

      Remember you don't own the airplane. The airline have every right to know who's boarding their $100 million toys.

      • Please read Terror in the Mind of God [ucpress.edu].

        Particularily the section where a member of the Hamas went looking to blow some people up, found someone not really caught up in the cause (his cousin), and the deed was done inside three days.

        I'm sure we'll be seeing biometrics to keep the known (natural selection will get a few stupid ones) baddies off the planes, but I fail to see how it would stop the terrorists from recruiting new talent as required...

      • Remember, they flew the routes beforehand. They had studied the routes and passenger loads, picking the flights that would have the fewest passengers thereby minimizing their risk of failure?

        So, the question becomes, if your on a Government list are you allowed to use mass transportation? Would we stop at terrorist? What about know protesters for major events? Say if some G7/G8 meeting or IMF meeting is going on, do we monitor or prevent know organizers of the protests that follow? What if they had violent behaviour before?

        Really, the only security that I wouldn't mind in an airport is similar to that portrayed in the Total Recall, where everyone walks past a screen which highlights solid objects. Its totally fair and cannot be considered intrusive for it doesn't violate you.
    • Biometrics at the jetway is fine. The airlines already have most of your personal information when you buy a ticket... I want them to know exactly who is on the plane with me. IT is a completely different beast for the government to have access to this kind of info and track people.

      This is true. No amount of security we enforce would have prevented this attack. I'd like to see a loosening of snooping by the government - let it trust its own people. The people who want to do this will do it whether or not we're looking for them. Armed marshalls on planes is fine with me. _THAT_ could have prevented this. Just make sure there are oneor two people on each flight armed much better than anything a terrorist can take on (getting guns on planes appears damn near impossible, which is good), and it's all generally good.

      Now..for suitcase nukes and anthrax in NYC's water supply....
      • This is true. No amount of security we enforce would have prevented this attack.

        What are you talking about???? Several of the hijackers were on the FBI's "known terrorists" list. If the arlines checked passenger lists against the known terrorist lists they very likely could have averted the tragedy. I don't imagine this list can be too long, it wouldn't be very hard to set up a database for the airlines to query.

        • I don't imagine this list can be too long, it wouldn't be very hard to set up a database for the airlines to query.

          I'd like to see the fbi make the full list available for downloading. Then let the airlines take that list and compare it against their ticketed passengers. Then any matches are spit out and handed over to the feds. That way the government isn't tracking you and at least then your information remains with the company you gave it to. That would be a better form of security than some of these other half-baked ideas. IMHO. Besides in the banking industry this sort of process is already done for "deadbeat dads."

          That way you can arrest the known terrorists when they arrive for their ticketed flght. Simple, effective and little to no impact on my civil liberities.

          • But the point is that the terrorist aren't supposed to know they are on the 'known' list. Otherwise they can just select their operatives by seeing who's NOT on the FBI list.
            • But the point is that the terrorist aren't supposed to know they are on the 'known' list. Otherwise they can just select their operatives by seeing who's NOT on the FBI list.

              Humm, you're right...I should have said it should be downloadable to the airlines. Or like the "deadbeat dad's" senario...cd's are shipped to companies in the industry, and each company sends a cd back with any matches. The reason I was thinking downloadable is since this information is possibly more dynamic and with airlines selling tickets everyday, a monthly cd just wouldn't hack it.

          • People don't understand that we have civil liberties for a reason, and that reason is to protect us from our government. Imagine if Afganistan were to put this system in place. How hard would it be for them to add known protestors and possible defectors to the list of "known terrorists". Not imagine that we put all these checks in place and the U.S. It may not effect us now, but it will effect our future generations. We have to be very careful what we give away now to prevent bloodshed later.

      • Re:Biometrics are coming.... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by wurp ( 51446 ) on Friday September 28, 2001 @10:39AM (#2363515) Homepage
        Anthrax isn't deliverable by water. Your worst fear should be clouds of anthrax delivered via air, since anthrax:
        *lasts 30-40 years in the open
        *is easy to produce
        *is infectious in miniscule amounts
        *when inhaled is nearly 100% fatal once symptoms occur, regardless of treatment
        *the US government isn't letting anyone but the military be vaccinated!

        Vaccination appears to provide a 95%+ immunity to airborn anthrax (evidence is sketchy for humans, since we don't experiment with infecting the vaccinated ;) If we don't have enough vaccine for everyone, why the hell not? Anthrax has been well known to be a major bio warfare hazard for years, and the vaccine has likewise been known for years. Livestock handlers and livestock have been getting vaccinated for anthrax for ages.
        • *the US government isn't letting anyone but the military be vaccinated!
          That is completely not true. The anthrax vaccine has been FDA approved and available since 1978. It was only commonly given to veterinarians or animal workers until the military started giving them. Right now there is just a shortage of the vaccine, since the cultures can take years to grow.

    • Might have flagged terrorists! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by edremy ( 36408 ) on Friday September 28, 2001 @10:42AM (#2363527) Journal

      But then - the best biometric system in the world wouldn't have stopped the WTC attack - the hijackers were passengers with tickets and many used their real names anyway so

      You do know that the FBI was busy looking for several of the terrorists even as the planes hit the WTC, right? They got into the country and disappeared- a face check at the gate might have flagged them and possibly prevented the attacks. The terrorists would have at least been delayed enough to stop some of the attacks.

      You're right: biometrics is coming. This could be a very good thing if we drive the technology to good use. Fingerprint check when I use a credit card: why not? I'd love it if the store *knew* I was the owner of that card- I've had my number stolen before. Ever spoken with someone who's had their identity stolen? It's a multi-year nightmare of wrecked credit, endless phone calls and general heartburn.

      Realize that we have almost no privacy anyway. Various large companies know a *lot* about me. They know personal details down to my last dollar, my taste for mint chip ice cream and the fact my wife and I are infertile. The government has run at least 3 background checks on me that I know of, the most recent within the last month. (I got my pilot's license recently: the FBI has already visited the airports I used to pull my records.)

      Biometrics won't change that-what we need to do is make sure the transparancy goes both ways.

      Eric

    • For all biometric systems, the analysis in Schneier's article still applies. Even if the fingerprint readers and retina scanners in the airport were 99.99% accurate, the false alarms would vastly outnumber the legimate "hits". From an engineering standpoint, these systems may be marvels, but they are totally inappropriate for airport applications. Only politicians will make sure these systems get installed. A false sense of security is still security, right?

      Our entire travel itinerary is already tracked electronically. Adding one more means of tracking is not really that big of an issue. The statistics in Schneier's article is a much bigger thing to worry about in terms of our rights. I don't want to go to court to prove that I am not a terrorist. This would cost me a nontrivial amount of money and time and would result in no improvement in the number of terrorists in the world. In short, only injustice would be served.

  • It just don't work! (Score:5, Informative)

    by CaptainAlbert ( 162776 ) on Friday September 28, 2001 @10:02AM (#2363342) Homepage
    See:

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/21916.htm l

    • And in case no-one else has thought of using this karma-whoring link:

      Here are the results [dodcounterdrug.com] of the Facial Recognition Vendor Test (FRVT) 2000, commissioned by the DoD.

      Tom.

  • Hasn't this system shown its bugs when used in the past at major events like the Super Bowl?

    Even if they manage to improve its accuracy, the most important ingredient in better airport security is better-paid, more-reliable personnel. At many major airports, like New Orleans where I live, the scanner folks start at minimum wage and get about three hours of training. Ouch.

    When airlines start taking security seriously - and stop trying to increase profit margins by paying people squat - then we'll have a safer system.

  • But imagine the fun you could have (Score:5, Funny)

    by Evil Al ( 7496 ) on Friday September 28, 2001 @10:05AM (#2363351) Homepage
    Top 5 ways to have fun with an airport face scanner

    5: Wear a Nixon mask and watch the security guys do a double-take looking at their computer readout
    4: Attach a /bin/laden mask to the back of someone's back and watch the fireworks
    3: Sell time on the system to Oil of Olay to spot oily, reflective skin
    2: Adapt it to seek out hot chicks
    1: Link it to Am I Hot Or Not [hotornot.com]!

  • Somehow we coming to the conclusion that there's no substitute for thorough searching of passenger's baggage and carry-on items. Though this is an invasion of privacy and an inconvenience to travelers, this is needed to avoid another tragedy like the events of Sept. 11th.

    Face recognition should come into play if there is suspicion aroused from some other means of security.
    • Somehow we coming to the conclusion that there's no substitute for thorough searching of passenger's baggage and carry-on items. Though this is an invasion of privacy and an inconvenience to travelers, this is needed to avoid another tragedy like the events of Sept. 11th.

      Even if the terrorists had been strip-searched and analy probed, they would have been allowed on the planes, because boxcutters were allowed on the planes at the time.

  • Besides which (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Friday September 28, 2001 @10:07AM (#2363362)
    Any terrorist prepared to commit suicide is going to think nothing of having reconstructive surgery if that's what it takes to foil such a system.

    • Re:Besides which (Score:2, Insightful)

      by kilf ( 135983 )
      That's just it, really, isn't it. If someone has no regard for their own safety, no security system will keep them out.

  • nonsensical (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gargle ( 97883 ) on Friday September 28, 2001 @10:09AM (#2363370) Homepage
    If the system were 99.99% accurate and it indicated a match, wouldn't you want to pull the person out for closer inspection? (this is not to say that you treat him like a terrorist)

    After all, airports already arbitrarily subject people to random inspection of their luggage.
    • If the system were 99.99% accurate and it indicated a match, wouldn't you want to pull the person out for closer inspection? (this is not to say that you treat him like a terrorist)

      After all, airports already arbitrarily subject people to random inspection of their luggage.

      The problem with such profiling is not that anybody who looks like a terrorist is being singled out once for closer inspection. It's that he will be singled out every time he travels. Whereas for random checks, you'd have to be fairly unlucky to get picked every single time.

      • If the system were 99.99% accurate and it indicated a match

      But it isn't anywhere near that. Did you even read the article? If we put this in, either a lot of innocent people are going to spend some time proving their innocence, or (more likely) after we return to business as usual, the minimum wage security guys will ignore the constant false positives, in the same way that they ignore the X-ray machine today.

    • To reply to everybody all at once,airports *already* have profiling [google.com] systems in place. A face recognition system with an error rate of 1 in 1000 and used judiciously as part of a package of indicators can serve a practical purpose.
      • guh, read the article! the error rate (false positives) is 1 in 3!!! not 1 in 1000! that means to try and catch a terrorist, every third person would have to be pulled aside, interrogated, searched, and bothered!

        AND this error rate was in controlled laboratory tests, where the subjects were photographed several times in good light and from several different angles.

        From a security perspective, it just isn't a good solution, or even a helpful component to a solution. It's unfortunate, I myself thought their systems could be a bit better than wrong 33% of the time, but it isn't!
  • There's one thing that no one wants to hear:

    There is no way to stop a determined terrorist on a suicide mission.

    They will somehow find a way to accomplish their goals, and if one of them fails, there will be thousands waiting behind him to try again. Wipe out one terrorist group and another will rise to take their place. Stop a terrorist from boarding an airplane and they'll drive a bomb in on the ground floor.

    All of this going to war, extra security measures, etc... it will make us feel more secure, and feel like we're accomplishing something, but when it doesnt stop terrorism (it wont) then what will we do?

    -J5K

    • > There is no way to stop a determined terrorist on a suicide mission.

      Many have been stopped before, in addition, I believe many measures could make it virtually impossible to repeat using a plane of such size as a weapon.

      It's always possible for me to break into your house, even with an alarm, does that mean you won't put a door in your house, not lock it ?

      Weird argument.
      • "It's always possible for me to break into your house, even with an alarm, does that mean you won't put a door in your house, not lock it ? "

        I'll still lock my door, even though I know that anyone who wants to could still break in. It's more for my feeling of security than anything else. What good having a reinforced steel front door if the rest of my house is full of glass windows? It's a psychological factor, nothing more.

        Intrusive measures at airports and whatnot.. they're doing their job if they make people feel more secure, without being so intrusive that they create more anxiety than they help prevent.

        If we lock down the airports, we'll still be subject to terrorist attacks coming from other places. Does that mean we shouldnt have any security measures at the airports? I'm not saying that either. But being ridiculously intrusive isnt going to help much.

        I think the security people at the airports *should* be better trained, better paid, and all that. But all this business about national ID cards, retinal scans, facial recognition, etc, I think are just knee-jerk reactions, and wont really help prevent future attacks.

        -J5K

        • > But being ridiculously intrusive isnt going to help much.

          What's intrusive about scanning your face and matching it against a DB for wanted and suspected terrorists ?

          Do you find it intrusive if somebody looks at you ?

          Is it intrusive to show your license ?
  • Regardless of whether the face scanning software was 100% accurate (as pointed out already by various people and the article itself, we aren't even close to that), who says that potential terrorists/criminals are even going to be in the comparison database. All you have to do is ensure that this is going to be your first offence, and you won't even be in there.

    Again we are attempting to find a series of high tech solutions (at very high expense), when we really need to be applying a bit more low tech, hands-on investigative work. You can't automate everything (certainly not yet anyway) ...
    • Big contractors making billions out of the Government? Hmm?

    • 2 of the bastards were on a watch list for terrorism, one even had an arrest warrant.

      Most of these "Holy Warriors" don't have criminal records, but sometimes we flag them as potential terrorists and put them on watch lists.

      If we can't use the list to detect them at the entrance of a plane, then it's useless to gather intelligence on terrorists.

      > when we really need to be applying a bit more low tech, hands-on investigative work

      That was done ! However, they weren't detected when boarding planes ! A face recognition and even name match system would have stopped them !!!

  • Why are "false positives" bad? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by alkali ( 28338 ) on Friday September 28, 2001 @10:17AM (#2363400)
    While I'm generally a Schneier fan, I am more than a little mystified by this article. Schneier's argument is that face recognition systems in airports are bad because they will almost certainly give large numbers of "false positive" results -- i.e., some non-terrorists will be identified as terrorists. But why are false positives so bad?

    I imagine that airport patrons identified as "terrorists" by the face recognition system would be detained by security, have their ID rigorously checked and have their luggage rigorously inspected. (With high levels of accuracy, this would amount to a few people per airport per day.) I do not imagine that they would be shot on sight. Inconveniencing (and embarrassing) a few patrons at each airport every day is certainly not a good thing, but it is hardly self-evident that it would be intolerable.

    I am not a big fan of universal use of face recognition technology for the reasons outlined in Phil Agre's excellent essay [ucla.edu] on that subject (linked at the bottom of the Schneier piece as well). But we all understand that some compromises have to be made to make air travel secure. If this is the best argument against using face recognition at airports, it's not a good one.

    • Re:Why are "false positives" bad? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by djmurdoch ( 306849 ) on Friday September 28, 2001 @10:30AM (#2363465)
      The fact that only a few people will be inconvenienced isn't the real problem. The problem is that the users of the system will mistrust it.

      If only one in 10000 positives is really a terrorist, then most airport security personnel will never see one. They'll stop and inspect a few people each day, and in every case, they will be false positives. That will lead to a tremendous mistrust of the system.

      Imagine if you were running airport security, and every day the computer told you that you should detain someone because they looked like a terrorist, and in every case it turned out to be false. You'd feel like a fool.

      It would be just like having false fire alarms a couple of times a day, every day. You wouldn't evacuate every time, would you?
      In the same way, the airport security people would stop responding as diligently after months of false alarms. Then the system wouldn't work.

      A system that people don't trust isn't worth having. It's just a waste of time and money.
      • I pointed out in another post that airports already use computer profiling systems [google.com]. A face recognition system (assuming that it is even fairly accurate) can be used judiciously as part of a package of indicators. The operator doesn't have to know exactly *why* the profiling system was triggered. e.g. A light can come on that says "take a closer look at this passenger".

        In the same way, the airport security people would stop responding as diligently after months of false alarms. Then the system wouldn't work.

        Well the airports haven't got tired of pulling out Middle Eastern looking men, nor (after so many years) have the police got tired of pulling over Blacks motorists to search for drugs, have they?
    • Several reasons. Assuming 99.99% accuracy and one in one billion flyers is a terrorist, then it will generate 9,999 false positives for every true positive. And every false positive gets the full treatment. Eventually, the airlines have to delay every flight that one of those false positives is on, or the government has to assume the cost of re-booking them. The security troops will start to tune out alarms (see "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" for details). Also, the system only catches terrorists whose pictures are in the database. Lots of false positives, with an occaisonal false negative, and high running costs.
        • Assuming 99.99% accuracy

        Apologies for the redundancy, but The Register [theregister.co.uk] has an article today that says that "to detect 90 per cent of terrorists we'd need to raise an alarm for one in every three people passing through the airport"

        • That's how statistics work. Stats and probability are two math classes that everyone should take.

          For example, either Gore or Bush being declared the winner of the last election would have been mathematically valid. The expected error in vote count, from the known error rate of the voting machines/ballots, was larger than the difference in votes the two candidates received.

      • And this is different from being hassled because I happen to have long hair and wear a big leather jacket (I like to have pockets. Lots of pockets.) when going through an airport how?
    • I have a UK based analogous example of why it might be bad.

      True statistic:
      "Most muggers in London are young black men"

      If a system of cameras in the street were looking for potential muggers and it could get false positives then based on appearance it would get an unfairly high number of young black men.

      IOW, it would discriminate instead of treating every individual equally. Instead of "most muggers are young black men" it would be effectively be saying "a young black individual is more likely to be a mugger than a white man" which is clearly bollocks and is racist. (In fact it is exactly the kind of "institutionalised racism" that the UK police have fairly recently been heavily criticised for)

      What if these airports were looking for known Bin Laden associates. We would see queues of men of eastern origin queueing to be searched while the white men and all women walk through freely.

      false negatives can be accepted because although the system isnt perfect it does no harm and does some good. False positives here would do harm and arguably do more harm than good.
    • Ok, but if this software is flawed, it is possible that the same guy is always hassled and checked by security every time he wants to use a plane. It's not some random distribution that is aggregated over everyone. Some people look more like Osama Bin Laden than others.
    • interesting how a "Schneier fan" doesn't even bother to read the article.

      "high levels of accuracy, this would amount to a few people per airport per day". Now, the other responses have addressed what this would mean (eg, for every 1 bad guy, something like 10,000 people would have to be heavily searched and focused on). The fact of the matter is though, that if you had read the article, you'd know the system is no where near that good. They aren't getting 99.999% accuracy. They are getting maybe 66% accuracy under controlled conditions. that is, people having their photographs taken at good light and from several angles.

      You won't do the math, so i'll make it simple. 1 in 3 people, that is if you and 2 of your friends went to the airport, at least ONE OF YOU would be stopped and assumed to be a terrorists because the computer said so. You'd have to be treated as such, searched and interrogated, generally delaying your flight by several hours for them to make sure. And let's say you and your family went, assuming 6 people. That means 2 of you would be stopped and given this treatment. Now, it doesn't take a mathematical genius to see what kinda numbers this leads to at _any_ airport.

      Read the article before you post anything, sheesh!

  • Surviellence methods need to have oversight (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Masem ( 1171 ) on Friday September 28, 2001 @10:17AM (#2363401)
    To me, I don't have a big problem with survellience at places like airports or other places where you have already given up your anonymousity in order to use the service (banks, etc). I'd rather see them stop and check more people, maybe only catching 1 in 10000 that are wanted for something, than stopping only those that fit exactly, catching 1 in 10, and missing a few that might slip through.

    The important thing is that the surviellence information must be handled in the right way; it's way too easy nowadays for companies in the name of profits to pool customer databases together and generate a large profile on you without you knowing. If surviellence is being used for government purposes, then only the government should have access to it; furthermore, if you are detained only because the computer indicated a match but you are otherwise innocent, there should be no record about this made in the computer beyond doing a $missed++ increment on the global database.

    Thus, any sort of increased surviellence absolutely needs some sort of public oversight to make sure the information is not abused or that information that should not be stored isn't. Frequent inspections of the use of biometrics, unrestricted access to the computer files and data collected, all done by private citizens with NDAs, is necessary before these systems should be in place.

  • More info and Links (Score:5, Informative)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Friday September 28, 2001 @10:21AM (#2363418) Journal
    The Register [theregister.co.uk] has a pretty good story [theregister.co.uk] on how Face Recognition is essentially useless, especially in uncontrolled environments.

    There is also this vendor nuetral test [dodcounterdrug.com]

    Bottom line is that this is merely a marketing opportunity for someone to get capital for products that are NOT ready for prime time.

    This has actually been examined by the US Department of Defense (DoD) Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which sponsored the Facial Recognition Vendor Test (FRVT) 2000, the test linked to above

    Under live conditions in an uncontrolled enviroment, the best false detection rate (FDR) was 33 per cent, with a false acceptance rate (FAR) of ten per cent. This means that to detect 90 per cent of terrorists we'd need to raise an alarm for one in every three people passing through the airport.

    I would say it is somewhat unacceptable.

  • Do you think that the people implementing this kind of thing do so because they think it improves security and safety?

    If so I think you have made a mistake. They are implementing it because they think it will make the public think that it improves security and safety.

    Giving the public what they think is best is always easier that giving them what is actually best. (and of course you might be wrong about whats best and the public right but thats another issue)

    The only solution to this kind of thing is to reduce the gap between the real best solution and the publics belief of what the best solution is.

    That means two things. Unlazy authorities and education of the people. Don't hold your breath on the former. Help out yourself with the latter.

  • Wrong tool for the job? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by First Person ( 51018 ) on Friday September 28, 2001 @10:22AM (#2363421)

    Biometrics are much easier to implement when the person's alledged identity is known. If the person claims to be X, the system need only compute B(X) and compare that to a precomputed data base entry B'(X). These values will almost never be identical due to noisy real world systems (different lighting, microphone noise, dirt on the fingerprint/retina scanner, etc.). Instead a statistical comparison must be made. If B(X) is statistically similar to B'(X), admit entry, otherwise call the firing squad.

    In the article, Bruce assumes his readers understand this. His explanation of why face recognition systems cannot find the rare targets in large populations is quite good. The same logic applies to voice matching for projects like Eschelon.

    And, of course, this wouldn't prevent individuals from using their own valid IDs to access public areas. The assumption of most security systems is that the intruder wants to commit a crime and get out while minimizing the probability of detection. A suicidal terrorist does not have this goal. He/she seeks to enter an area, commit a crime, and then die in the attempt. The tools developed for normal security may not be appropriate for suicidal terrorists or individuals on shooting sprees.

  • 9,999? (Score:2, Informative)

    by JoeRobe ( 207552 )
    I don't mean to be picky here, but my math says that if 1 out of every 1,000,000,000 people going through is a terrorist, there will be 99,999 false alarms for every terrorist detected, not 9,999. Eh, what's an order of magnitude here or there, anyways...
  • On a semi-related, semi-offtopic note: the anti-DMCA group Minnesotans for Fair Copyright will be hosting a lecture by Bruce Schneier at the University of Minnesota on Thursday, November 8. Should be a great talk -- everyone agrees that Bruce is a really great speaker!

    We also have some other DMCA speakers coming up -- Dan Burk on Oct 4, and John Logie on Oct 17. For more info, subscribe to the list:

    DMCA-minnesota-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

  • Yesterdays WSJ (Score:2, Insightful)

    by datatrash ( 522537 )
    There is an article in yesterdays (Thurs 9/27/01) Wall Street Journal about how Biometrics wouldn't have helped in the terrorism case, that is, it wouldn't have worked in picking up the faces of the two guys who they have on tape passing through Maine's airport. Basically the article says that face recognition technology doesn't work as effective as they hawk it out to. Actually following the hijackings the companies developing biometric products went on record saying that if their products had been in place then this would have been averted and their stocks rocked up. The WSJ puts a doubt on that. Their point, or the point of the person they interview who agues that it doesn't work that well is that cameras would have to zoom in and cover each face for longer than a camera in an open space like an airport or a football stadium possibly could be expected to.

    It actually puts some stats to the Superbowl Biometrics scam where they used face-recognition at last years SB. Turns out that of the 11 or howeverthefuckmany people they said they nabbed, most, were not correct matches.

    I used to get mad at the opening track [ohhla.com] on Mos Def's Black on Both Sides when he says

    You got a lot of socities and governments
    tryin to be God, wishin that they were God
    They wanna create satellites and cameras everywhere
    and make you think they got the all-seein eye
    Eh.. I guess The Last Poets wasn't, too far off
    when they said that certain people got a God Complex
    I believe it's true
    I don't get phased out by none of that, none of that
    helicopters, the TV screens, the newscasters, the..
    satellite dishes.. they just, wishin
    They can't really never do that

    Hell yeah they can! Well, at least for now, maybe they can't. In any event, if you have a WSJ from yesterday lying around. A very good piece.
  • The problem I have with so many of these sorts of arguements, is that they generally fail to offer solutions. I've seen: many petitions and rallys for peace in the wake of the attacks; dire predictions of the end of civil liberties; Not one of them addressed the issue of "well if we don't do this than what should we do?". Which tells me that they don't know, don't have any better ideas, and don't want to draw attention the fact because it may thwart their political agenda. But ignoring the problem isn't going to make it go away.

    So, facial recognition isn't perfect. As he said, if you cross-reference the system against an identity card or fingerprint or retina, which I believe is entirely acceptable for someplace as security-sensitive as an airport, you have a much stronger system. In which case, if someone was flagged by the biometric system you could discreetly stop them and verify their identity. And even if you didn't use a secondary means of identification, looking for one terrorist in a thousand is MUCH easier than looking for one in a million. It would at least be enough for the system to tell you to take a closer look at what you are doing.

    Your personal rights end where other people's begin. This is why you have to have a license to drive, or fly, or shoot a gun in the first place - vehicles and weapons are extremely dangerous to others if used improperly or intentionally. If it were up to me, I'd be adding these systems to every car, truck, boat, and weapon rental or dealership as well. I doubt the terrorists will strike again by air anytime soon, but these other routes are wide open.
    • Just to carry one concealed.

    • Re:So what would you do? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Absynthe ( 34189 ) on Friday September 28, 2001 @10:42AM (#2363526)
      I understand your frustration with people who aren't open to ideas without having any to replace them. However, I'm going to do just that. The converse of that idea is that we just do anything regardless of whether it helps or not.
      I'm terrified by the reaction of this country far more than terrorists. I'm wondering what "terrorist" means. The wierd totalitarian things that have happened here have fueled my paranoia. The White House issuing a statement telling people they have to "watch what they say" has me wondering if "terrorist" might mean anyone who dares dissent.
      I'd rather let things cool down for awhile. The way terrorist cells operate is that after an action everybody flees and goes back into cover. We have awhile to think about this. I think it would be a very good thing to let these decisions come at a more cool headed time.
    • It's people like you that annoy me the most.

      Let me explain why. You say "oh, you guys always just complain and never offer up a solution. quit picking away at the problems with our solutions, and give us a solution that works then, why don't you!". Sounds pretty much like what you just said?

      Now, I think one of my greatest strengths is my ability to recognize that I don't know everything, and when I encounter a problem that I know I cannot solve, I'll say it. I'm not going to give a solution, pretend like I know everything, and then get mad when people point out problems.

      It's much easier to point out flaws or potential problems in a solution then it is to find one that is perfect. Why? Because there are so many imperfect solutions as compared to (a possibly nonexistant) perfect solutions. What we can only hope for is that one day someone, or some people, figure out a solution that we can look at and say, "you know, I've tried to find some major issues with this thing, but I can't...".

      I think it's much more constructive to weed out all the bad solutions, and that will eventually help us find a solution that isn't so bad.

      People need to put aside their egos, and realize they do not know everything.

      As an example, facial recognition everywhere. How are you going to wire it up? Or if it's wireless, what kind of crazy modulation are you using on the signals to a) not interfere with all the others, b) have sufficient banwidth to send the signals c) whose going to monitor these signals? Who will check out all the positives? d) whose going to make sure they aren't tampered with? Even accidentally?

      Even a simple elevator system is much, much more complex than most people will ever know about. Why? Because it has to be safe. It has to act in a particular manner, responding to human input, responding to environmental conditions (not the weather, but what if there is no electricity?). Most people don't see this complexity because they don't even stop to think about it. And, most people, put to the task, would never even come close to designing a safe elevator system, simply because they haven't been trained, and the knowledge isn't there. It's ridiculous to think that these same people can come up with a system to stop terrorism, or even slow them down, when they couldn't even design a system to get people up and down a building.

  • This rush to biometrics seems like a 21st century solution to a problem that could be solved with 20th century technology.

    Wouldn't it make more sense and be much easier to simply link the FBI "watch list" to the airlines computers? Many of the hijackers were on this list. It seems incredible to me that a person on the list could buy a one-way ticket with cash without the system bringing up all sorts of warnings. Some of the hijackers (not all) fall into this category.

    The following things should cause there to be extra scrutiny (especially if you do/are more than one of them):

    • You are on the FBI watch list.
    • You pay cash for your ticket.
    • You buy a one-way ticket.

    It seems that doing a lookup on a name in a database is much quicker/easier/less expensive than installing facial recognition systems all over the place. Why not implement a simple solution that would have caught these guys first instead of a complex on that might not work?

    If you feel that we must use high-tech solutions, maybe a smart card put into passports and driver's licenses would make more sense and be more accurate. Once simple solutions are implemented then we can worry about the crazy complex ones.

    • Obviously you are right. The first problem in this case was the failure of existing systems to catch obvious dangers. The fractitious nature of the US military, police, and civil intelligence and security is one thing we're absolutely going to have to fix. Unfortunately, gross inefficiency, poor communication, and impenetrable beauracracy are a hallmark of far too many businesses and government agencies.

      Well, there's yet another arguement for wide standards in protocol. Perhaps we'll learn much leaner and more effective methods from all this.
  • ...you need to continually worry about the integrity of the biometric database. What happens if someone is wrongfully included in the database? ...

    This applies to all forms of identification and identity databases. We have social security numbers and a social security credit database. The system has its occassional upsets, but all in all it works. The Police work with large criminal databases. etc. As a society we keep records of people. The security and integrity of those records has nothing to do with face recognition technology.

    Terrorists are unlikely to pose for photo shoots.

    Sure they are. We knew they were terrorists when they entered the country in the first place (which sparks an entirely different problem that I won't talk about). We have a passport photo which they posed for to get into the country. The fact is that we know who many of these people are. An internation database of known terrorists would work.

    [ 99.99% accurate problem ]. Assume that one in one billion flyers, on average, is a terrorist. Is the software any good?

    Damn right it is. The odds that 4 passangers on a single plane will be incorrectly identified as terrorists is roughly 1 in 1,000,000,000,000. Even if it is only one terrorist, a posative match might result in increased scrutiny of that individual. Such a screening tool could only be helpful.

    The real problem with American Security systems is that idiots like this moron are advising people.

  • I worked for Viisage Technology [viisage.com] for a couple of years, and they use a system in the building where two cameras scan for faces in the hallway (as you're approaching to enter) and if a face found matches one in the employee database, it unlocks the door.

    It was sophisticated enough to identify me as me even when I was wearing my eyeglasses, and later, when I grew a goatee type [demon.co.uk] beard and moustache. No ID code to enter, no badge to carry. If you didn't match anyone in the database [oracle.com], it would summon security [nsa.gov] and leave the doors [thedoors.com] locked [masterlocks.com].

    Having run their Technical Support Department for 2 years, I can tell you that the products not only work, but work very well. They use the facial recognition in Massachusetts [state.ma.us] at the Department of Transitional Assistance [state.ma.us] (Welfare) offices to identify those people obtaining multiple ID's under assumed names to weed out Welfare fraud.

    The kind of access system [viisage.com] they have in their entry could be used in an airport entry [viisage.com] to identify a suspected terrorist [cnn.com] trying to move about the country and alert security. It's pretty close to an Orwelian [amazon.com] concept, except this type of monitoring would definately have oversight by a committee or White House [whitehouse.gov] office to prevent civil rights [aclu.org] abuses.

    I personally am against the idea on principle, but sometimes one principle takes precedence over another.

  • Missed point.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Kanabiis Atiiva ( 525166 ) on Friday September 28, 2001 @10:54AM (#2363592)
    I think alot of people are missing the point here. This system is supposed to 'stop terrorists by identifying potential terrorists'. The only way to catch a potential terrorist is if that individual has been caught or spotted and had his/her picture taken to compare. Of the 19 suspected terrorist that commited the Sept. 11 attacks only TWO of them had any kind of profile the rest were unknowns. So, someone please explain to me how exactly biometrics would have helped us here. Sure 2 of the terrorists would have potentialy been stoped, but the other 17 terrorists would have boarded the plane without much of a problem. Im sure biometrics might stop things for a small amount of time, but the terrorists will adapt quickly and all we are left with is a billion dollar step twords big brother is watching. There are sleeper agents all over the world, guys who have never been seen talking to a known terrorist, have been living in thier respective country for 5-10-15 years, have wives, kids, successfull careers, just waiting for thier 'phone call'. How exactly is a biometrics system going to solve that problem?

  • Baysian math (Score:5, Informative)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Friday September 28, 2001 @10:57AM (#2363608) Homepage Journal
    I've seen several comments that "If the system gives a false positive only 1 in 1000 times, then it must be pretty good!". This demonstrates that many people have no clue about how to properly apply probability - what is called Baysian math.

    You have to start out with two probabilities that are based on the system: probability of a false positive (Pp) and probability of a false negative (Pn).

    A false positive is mis-identifying a non-terrorist as a terrorist. Let us say that a collection of 1 million non-terrorists are run through a system, and it fingers one of them as a terrorist. That system has a Pp of 1 in a million, or 1E-6.

    A false negative is mis-identifying a terrorist as not being a terrorist. Let us say that we run a thousand known terrorists through the system, and let us say that only one is not detected. Then this system has a Pf of 1 in a thousand, or 1E-3.

    Now, that is ALL that you can say about a system. You cannot state the actual number of false positives vs. the number of false negatives in real use without an additional piece of data, the probability of any given person in a crowd being a terrorist, Pt. Let us say that in any given crowd, one in ten thousand people are terrorists (Pt = 1E-4). This may seem very high, but the lower Pt, the worse the system will perform, and I am heavily weighting this in favor of the face scanner.

    Now, let's run a million random people through the system, and see what happens.

    First, out of that million people, 1E6 * Pt = 1E6 * 1E-4 = 1E2 = 100 of them are terrorists. We would expect that of that 100 terrorists, 100 * Pf = 100 * 1E-3 = .1 terrorist will be mis-identified. So we will assume that all 100 of the terrorists trip the alarm.

    Now, out of the remaining 999,900 people, we would expect the system to finger 999,900 * Pn = 99,900 * 1E-6 = .9999, so we will assume that one innocent person gets fingered as a terrorist.

    Now, we had 101 trips, of which 1 was false, so the odds that you aren't a terrorist given that you were fingered are just under a percent. That's given the assumption that the system mis-identifies innocent people only one in a million times, and assuming that one person in ten thousand is a terrorist. Increase the false positive rate by a factor of ten (one in one hundred thousand innocents gets fingered), and decrease the terrorist population to a tenth of what we assumed (one terrorist in one hundred thousand) and you now have roughly fifty-fifty odds that a person fingered by the system is innocent.

    And that, people, is why systems like this don't work.

    • Re:Baysian math (Score:5, Insightful)

      by remande ( 31154 ) <remande.bigfoot@com> on Friday September 28, 2001 @12:04PM (#2364125) Homepage
      Now, we had 101 trips, of which 1 was false, so the odds that you aren't a terrorist given that you were fingered are just under a percent. That's given the assumption that the system mis-identifies innocent people only one in a million times, and assuming that one person in ten thousand is a terrorist. Increase the false positive rate by a factor of ten (one in one hundred thousand innocents gets fingered), and decrease the terrorist population to a tenth of what we assumed (one terrorist in one hundred thousand) and you now have roughly fifty-fifty odds that a person fingered by the system is innocent.


      And that, people, is why systems like this don't work.


      By that logic, metal detectors are a lousy system. Anecdotally, at least 50% of the passengers trip off the metal detector. Note that it's not there to detect metal, but weapons. If 1 in 1000 people are carrying weapons, then the metal detectors are giving 500 false positives per 1000 people.


      That, is of course, why the metal detector isn't a system. It is a part of the system; security officers and protocols are the remainder of the system. As such, tripping off the metal detector isn't a huge deal, but it does require further securing you (emptying pockets, etc.) until you no longer trip it.


      Similarly, facial recognition software is a bad system when used alone. When used in conjunction with a security officer, it can be damned effective. I suggest in another post that the software's response to finding a match is showing the security officers the snapshot it matched to. Let the officer quickly check the real person against a mug shot, and most false positives won't even be noticed by the passenger falsely matched. Those who are incorrectly detained are detained because an officer thinks you look like a particular mug shot, regardless of what the machine says. As a society, we regard that as an acceptable risk, otherwise we wouldn't post faces in post offices.


      It's not the technology, it's the way that you use it.

  • There seem to be many many arguments based on the idea that face printing is not currently accurate.

    Unfortunately, this is a horribly flawed argument. It is possible to recognize faces. Humans can do it. Computers can be taught to do what humans can do. They're called "Expert Systems" and covered in any intro AI course. Using computer inadequacy arguments gets us in the habit of adhering to these beliefs years after they have become outdated.

    Never, ever, ever base arguments on the idea that computers are fundamentally unable to perform some task well (especially if they are doing a decent job of it at the current time). People that say those things almost always look like dolts several years later, unless they are already accomplished experts in the field.

    Basically, having some mathematical theory that proves the inability of computers to perform a task is a good reason to say it can't be done. To decide that computers can't do something because you think that it would be hard is not.

  • This is used in Britain for tracking potential terrorists coming in and out of London, people "acting suspiciously", speeders, and other such serious hazards to human health.


    Mysteriously, some of the video-tape is then edited and sold to television stations as entertainment. There have been cases of lives being utterly destroyed by such profiteering off misery.


    These systems are linked to various national databases, BUT are monitored around-the-clock by Real People. It's NOT a fully-automatic system, rather it is a computer-assisted human system. As such, the track score (ignoring the abuses of the system) is not too bad. It's not brilliant, either, but it's certainly workable.


    Using biometrics in an almost totally computerized system, though, is a potential disaster. A single false positive could mar an innocent person for life, irretrievably. A single false negative could, as we have already seen demonstrated, cost thousands of lives.


    Biometrics are completely the wrong solution. I'm not even sure that the problem (as specified) is correct. The first rule on implementing a solution is to determine what the REAL problem is, ignoring whatever is expedient or would sit well with the PHB.


    IMHO, the REAL problem is how to ensure that an aircraft, its crew and passangers, and (as far as is achievable) their luggage, get from A to B intact, regardless of who is onboard, or what device(s) they have.


    That is an interesting problem, and it can't be solved by some puny, half-witted solution such as a thumb-print scanner, or video camera. You need to look at the aircraft itself, for an answer.


    Bombs on-board are nasty, but not necessarily fatal. Many aircraft disintegrations at altitude do NOT kill the occupants. Frequently, it is the impact with land or water that is fatal. Another cause is when seats are thrown around in the cabin, causing severe head injuries.


    Let's look at these one at a time, starting with the first. Rate of descent is trivial. All you need is the head-rest to contain a folded emergency parachute, and the problem is basically solved.


    The head-injuries aren't any more of a problem. A roll-bar, mounted at an angle from the top of the seat, would protect the head against most impacts.


    Then, we move onto someone with hostile intent flying the aircraft. Wouldn't biometrics help, there? Not if that someone =WAS= the pilot! Even one of the cabin crew could easily take control, even if the pilot were armed and stupid enough to pull a weapon in a pressurised, enclosed space.


    The only way to prevent someone of hostile intent from flying the craft is to extend the concept already implemented on the A400 Airbus - "smart" controls capable of recognising a hazardous manoever. If the aircraft detects a building within a dangerous space (it has proximity sensors, this isn't something outside of current technology), then it is perfectly capable of turning away from it, overriding any pilot commands to go closer.


    Here is a scenario where it truly doesn't matter who carries on what, or who does what. Crashes, such as those on Sep 11th, COULD NOT HAPPEN! The aircraft's onboard computer would forbid it. On-board explosions would be (largely) survivable, reducing such tragedies to major inconveniences for a fair percentage of those involved. Which is better? 100% dead, or 10% dead, 90% without spare underwear. Obviously, any dead is higher than anyone would like, but let's start with measures that might REDUCE the numbers, and worry about perfection later!


    In fact, just to be annoying, I'll be a perfectionist now. Plenty of people have demonstrated (eg: by dropping eggs from the top of the Empire State Building) that shock-absorbing structures are not difficult to build. To prevent explosions in the hold from being catastrophic, you'd need some kind of honeycomb layer surrounding each crate, and another lining the hold itself. This would absorb the energy safely, so that even major incidents (such as the oxygen cylinders that blew a ValuJet out the sky, some time back) would not be nearly so severe. The chances are, only the contents of the one crate would be affected. Even in major incidents, there's a good chance that only the cargo would be affected, and not all of it at that. A major catastrophe becomes a minor nuicence.


    Poor maintenance has caused far more jets to crash than terrorists, yet this has never been really targetted. Maybe because allowing people to see a human dimension to things would cripple the fear factor.


    How, then, to deal with poor maintenance? IMHO, it partially goes back to the whole computer control systems. If the computer can conduct its own pre-flight checks, a-la those NASA's computers already do for rocket & shuttle missions, on a component-by-component basis, you'd pick up a lot of faults, long before they became life-threatening. Sure, you might increase take-off delays, but you'd also increase the odds of the aircraft actually landing where it's supposed to be, rather than over a five-mile radius.


    These measures are either very basic material science, or simple extensions of already-implemented technological solutions. They don't care, or NEED to care, what is brought on-board, who will do what, or whether the cheese is fresh.


    In comparison, biometrics is a largely experimental field with low success rates, and an even lower impact rate.


    If I had to choose between an airline that went with the simple, basic solution, or one which went with the complex, biometric solution, I'd go for the former. Sure, there might be a terrorist on every other seat. There might be for the other airliner, too. The point is, in the first case, I don't need to give a damn.

  • Because with my luck I'll look exactly like some wanted felon, and then fourteen times a day, every time I walk past a security camera, the alarms will go off and the cops will bust in and I'll wind-up handcuffed on the floor before they realize I'm not the droid they're looking for.

  • I believe that Biometrics at airports can work if we give it a backbone.

    • Scan everyone at the security checkpoints. This will allow for adding the proper light and getting more laboratory like results.
    • Only allow people through who are recognized as being who their driver's license says they are.

    Obviously this requires a nationwide database of pictures for everyone. This may seem impossible to compile except when you consider we already do it in the form of driver's licenses! So basically we need to nationalize the driver's license process and create a central database of the photos.

    I think it would be doable.

    • So if I wanted to hijack an airplane, I'd need to find someone who looked very much like me, and then kill him, take his ID, and use that to board a plane.

      Which is basically exactly what the 9/11 terrorists did, minus the sophisticated system that wouldn't have helped at all.

  • It's not whether it works, it's who it works on (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Friday September 28, 2001 @11:39AM (#2363891) Homepage
    • the best biometric system in the world wouldn't have stopped the WTC attack - the hijackers were passengers with tickets and many used their real names anyway so

    Which leads to a good point. How "suspect" do I have to be before you restrict my ability to move around and basically live a normal life?

    If you stick to putting only known foreign terrorists in the database, fair enough. If you put known escaped US felons and bail jumpers in as well, again fair enough.

    But the September the 11th terrorists were only suspects; we knew they were here, but they were here legally and openly, so we had nothing to charge them with. These are the people we want to stop, so we have to put them in and, what? Stop them flying? Search and question them? OK, lives are at stake, let's do that. it sucks, but it's necessary.

    So, what's the criteria for putting a US citizen in? You don't have enough evidence to charge me. Am I an acknowledged activist, spouting anti-American slogans and calling for the end of US involvement in the Holy Land (pesky old 1st Amendment)? Or do I just have an uncle in Afghanistan who likes to send me encrypted mail? What are the criteria?

    Do you stop me flying altogether, or do you just search me every time? If I'm not trusted on a plane, am I trusted with a gun? With access to explosives, or the materials to make them? Do you stop me using encryption? Or do you just watch me closely? Do I even know that I'm in the database at effectively wearing a big "suspicious" label because of my ethnicity, religion, family or political leanings?

    I'm not against this technology (assuming we can get it to work), but I am very concerned that there be a clear, open procedure for who goes in the database. Specifically, I want to know:

    • Who can put people in the database?
    • Who can take people out of the database?
    • Am I in the database?
    • How did I get in?
    • How do I get out?
    • How do I prove my innocence and ensure that I don't get put back in this or similar databases again?
  • maybe we would have caught this guy [postcardsfromprison.com] sooner, assuming we didn't accidentally lock up weird al yankovic first.

    bryguy

  • only works as a "good guy" system (Score:3, Interesting)

    by beanerspace ( 443710 ) on Friday September 28, 2001 @01:10PM (#2364471) Homepage
    I was king code-monkey on the original implemenation of INSPASS [usdoj.gov]. A system designed to expedite one's wait as they enter the U.S. from a "friendly" country. It was designed to reduce the lines so that INS inspectors had more time to focus on bad guys and people from "unfriendly" countries.

    It was essentially a "good guy" system. Meaning, I'd swipe my card, which claimed I was "Joe Smoe". I then put my hand in the box and had it's geometry scanned. If it passed, it would "confirm" my identity and send me along to the Customs line. If it threw a false result, I was compelled to stand in the long line with everyone else.

    Using biometrics to determine "bad guys" is a horse of a much different color ... and a far girthier size. Imagine, I walk into an airport. I scans my face, or fingerprint. From there the image is sliced and diced into various quadrants. Even with a beowolf, there are thousands of minutea points I share with the rest of the worlds population.

    So up comes a list of "close matches". Then human intervention comes along and finishes the job. This is a poor-man's quick and dirty explanation of our current "bad-guy" systems work to match figerprints. Like I said, a far girthier and much colored horse.

    If biometrics were to be implemented as an airport, I would see it as again, a "good guy" system to expedite the long lines currently at the airport ... where it's easy for a bad guy to take advantage of the overworked employees with managers demaning they keep the line moving.

    I would think it better to be a system provided by the airlines. Heck, credit cards are already putting my face and other info on smartcards, why not a frequent flyer plan along with it ... that can also be used to confirm my baggage on the flip side.

    We'll see.

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