USSOCOM’s brave new exploitation of the bad guys’ biometrics

The U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) may soon enter into a long-term contractual agreement with an unidentified academic institution near MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida as part of a potential collaboration with it and other national academic institutions for the purpose of exploring what USSOCOM calls “primary concepts and capabilities” involving intelligence collection and exploitation.

These capabilities involve a variety of biometric, forensic, and “digital identities exploitation” technologies that are directly related to classified counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and other national intelligence collection programs, activities, and operations.

USSOCOM recently began looking into the feasibility of involving academia in senior level engineering that will “require access to applied research and advanced technology development that can be uniquely supplied with a relationship with a dedicated academic partner.”

No determination as to the viability of such a partnership has been made by USSOCOM, thus it remains to be seen whether a formal solicitation will be forthcoming. But, if a partnership is found warranted, USSOCOM said it would involve a five-year commitment with a potential value over $100 million annually “to provide applied research, technology development, prototyping, academic collaboration, and interns with appropriate security clearances.”

Regardless of whether such a union is formed, what USSOCOM has said about potential new partnerships with academia reveals additional details about the biometric and forensic collection technologies it either has on the drawing boards or has already fielded and is looking to mature.

One includes the domain of digital identities exploitation (DIE). USSOCOM said it’s exploring how academia might be able to assist in furthering the development, deployment, and sustainment of systems that can be utilized to collect, exploit, process, and analyze information that is “representative of external entities, including a person, organization, application, chemical or device, collectively known as Collected Exploitable Material (CEM), also known as “battlefield evidence.”

DIE encompasses what USSOCOM calls an “exploitation analysis capability concept of operations” through which “technical components, information technology components, organizational components, and documentation in support of technologies used to collect unique biometric signatures” are incorporated.

These biometric signatures include latent fingerprints, DNA, and forensically linked and exploitable “items of interest to specific persons [derived] through forensic chemistry analysis, document, media, cellular phone, and small uncrewed multi-domain systems exploitation” and other means of information acquisition.

Since the September 11, 2001, attacks, the US has amassed more than 300 terabytes of CEM gathered from across the globe during counterterrorism operations. And more is being collected all the time. This data includes biometric forensic material and data from computers, external hard drives, cell phones, and from physical items like books, manuals, diaries, letters, and other types of personal correspondence that have been recovered.

The data has been critical in identifying and locating new terror targets and in enhancing understanding of internal terror groups’ dynamics, such as leader priorities, inter-group relationships, organizational challenges, and the bureaucratic minutiae associated with running terror networks and operations.

“CEM holds great potential and has been used in important ways to investigate and prosecute foreign terrorist fighters, screen and watchlist terrorist suspects, or deny” travel,” Don Rassler, an assistant professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, wrote in CTC Sentinel.

“Data and what the United States does with data will enable, and be a critical driver of, what the future of U.S. counterterrorism looks like,” Rassler pointed out. And “to prepare for that future, the United States needs to figure out how it can more effectively harness, extract more meaning from, and make more efficient and timely use of the vast stockpiles of terrorism-related data it has, and will continue to acquire, in the years ahead.”

CEM, though, isn’t just the domain of counterterrorism. It also involves the biometrics, forensic, and data collected during counterintelligence activities and operations against rogue regimes, WMD proliferators, spies, and other bad actors, Biometric Update has learned. Such operations are carried out by both SOF and counterintelligence entities like the Central Intelligence Agency’s Special Activities Center which conducts covert and paramilitary operations.

Much of the biometric and other forensic CEM materials acquired during these activities are collected during what is called Sensitive Site Exploitation (SSE), which Biometric Update previously reported on here and here.

Sensitive Site Exploitation involves the collection and exploitation of captured equipment, media, and documents for counterterrorism, counterintelligence, force protection, and other national security needs using exploitation kits that can:

• Capture biometric data (retina scan, fingerprints, etc.)
• Collect and analyze personal documents
• Exploit electronic media
• Collect and analyze communications and cell phone data

SSE exploitation kits and field forensic labs include all the necessary hardware, software, and equipment to acquire, inventory, and analyze all aspects of a site including:

• Digital photography, documents, electronic media
• Material collection and pattern evidence
• Latent prints
• Suspect biometric intelligence
• Drug, explosives (including post-blast evidence), and trace material testing

The individuals performing an SSE typically are enabled with equipment to communicate relevant data like fingerprints, retinal scans, and photographs of captured or killed persons to “reach back” facilities or operation command posts for additional analysis and decision making, especially when such decision making is time sensitive.

USSOCOM’s SSE program falls under its Military Intelligence Program (MIP), which are activities that directly support the Secretary of Defense’s intelligence, counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and related intelligence responsibilities. USSOCOM’s MIP programs, projects, and/or activities provide capabilities to meet SOF warfighter operational and tactical requirements more effectively, and include intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) systems and sustainment; processing, exploitation, and dissemination capabilities; tactical intelligence collection and analysis devices/systems/databases; and classified programs and activities.

USSOCOM’s SSE program provides biometric devices and a scientific analysis capability to positively identify persons of interest and to exploit the documents, electronic data, and other materials collected at “sensitive sites.” USSOCOM’s FY 2025 SSE program budget of $47.7 million is only slightly less than what it received for FY 2024.

CEM SOF operations also involves what USSOCOM calls an Exploitation Analysis Capability (EAC), which is described as a modular and scalable Special Operations-peculiar (SO-p) forensic laboratory “environment” capability. Within this environment, USSOCOM says “biometrics enable the collection and transmission of unique and measurable human signatures that are then used to verify against or enroll into DoD authoritative databases.”

Other elements of CEM includes the exploitation of documents and media (DOMEX) and forensics which also have been developed and fielded as scalable, modular, and adaptable multi-disciplined capabilities to provide the means to identify, exploit, translate and produce reports on documents and electronic media of immediate tactical value, as well as the recovery, identification, and analysis of chemistry-based CEM.

USSOCOM’s FY 2025 budget fully funds its SSE DOMEX services contract which provides it with 25 contractor personnel who provide analytical support and the costs associated with various services (web, mobile application, database design, etc.) related to “identity intelligence exploitation mission[s].”

In FY 2024, USSOCOM advanced the development and fielding of portable “touchless equipment” it says integrates “converging technologies” on handheld biometric devices.” Its FY 2025 plan continues the development, testing, and evaluation of advanced DOMEX capabilities for performing non-destructive CEM exploitation using small Uncrewed Multi-Domain Systems (sUMS).

USSOCOM explained that its tactical uncrewed and command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (C4I) systems make up an integrated network of systems that provide positive command and control and timely exchange of intelligence and threat warning derived from CEM exploitation to all organizational echelons. The C4I systems that support this new architecture employ the latest standards and technology by transitioning from separate systems to full integration with the Global Information Grid,” which allows SOF elements to operate with any force combination in multiple environments to collect and exploit CEM.

Article Topics

biometric identifiers  |  biometrics  |  counter-terrorism  |  forensics  |  military  |  research and development  |  USSOCOM