US Army moves closer to fielding next-gen biometrics collection

The U.S. Army recently completed field tests of its $28.3 million Next Generation Biometric Collection Capability (NXGBCC) hardware and software at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri under the Fort Leonard Wood Soldier Touch Point (STP) initiative. The goal was to collect important feedback from soldiers on the effectiveness of the still in-development NXGBCC system. The soldiers completed tasks involving mobile biometric collection centered around a laptop for static operations.

Expected to be fielded in 2025, NXGBCC will replace the Army’s Biometrics Automated Toolset-Army (BAT-A), which the Army says “is old and obsolete.”

This is the first time the Army is deploying a capability that is software-based, with added voice modality, and not tied to unique hardware that must be maintained. The Army says NXGBCC “is more integrated” with the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DOD) biometric enterprise and unified action partners.

The system was field-tested by the Army in late 2019 and was chosen for further development.

The Soldier Touch Point concept was created specifically to gather soldier input early in the development process to ensure that prototype designs meet the needs of soldiers operating on the frontlines. By providing direct feedback, both the Army and NXGBCC engineers can pinpoint failures in advance to produce the most efficient product possible. STPs like the one at Fort Leonard Wood provide a listening opportunity between engineers, product managers, and the people who employ the systems.

The U.S. Army Futures Command has said “soldier feedback is critical in shaping the future of U.S. Army technology.”

“People say that feedback is a gift and there is no better gift for a product office than direct feedback from the soldiers that will be using the equipment,” said Forrest Church, product manager for Biometrics Enabling Capability/Army PM DOD Biometrics, and former Acting Deputy Project Manager for U.S. Department of Defense Biometrics under the Program Executive Office for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare, and Sensors.

“Our opinion on whether NXGBCC meets their mission needs is not important. It’s their feedback that really matters,” Church emphasized, adding that the testing “was a major milestone for the program and a great opportunity to get invaluable soldier feedback.”

BAT-A is the current Army Program of Record for its tactical biometrics collection capability requirements and was originally developed as a quick reaction capability. Existing devices have been deployed in a combat zone for nearly 20 years, “well beyond the standard three to six years of useful electronic equipment life,” the Army said.

Specifically designed to be the Army’s forward biometrics collection and matching system, NXGBCC has been designed to support access control, identify persons of interest, and to provide biometric identities to detainee and intelligence systems. NXGBCC collects, matches, and stores biometric identities and is comprised of three components: a mobile collection kit, static collection kit, and a local trusted source. The local trusted source provides an additional analysis capability to assist in “decide and act” activities.

The Army said “NXGBCC will add to the number of biometric modalities collected, provide matches to the warfighter in less than three minutes, increase the data sharing capability, and reduce weight, power, and cost.”

NXGBCC will use a Local Trusted Source that is composed of a distributed database that’s capable of being used worldwide, data management software, forward biometric matching software, and an analysis portal. Also, NXGBCC collection kit(s) will be composed of one or more collection devices, a credential/badge device, and document scanning device.

The NXGBCC system employs an integrated system of commercial-off-the-shelf hardware and software that is intended to ensure the end-to-end data flow that’s required to support different technical landscapes during multiple types of operational missions. To support these operational missions, NXGBCC will be capable of operating on both organic and non-organic infrastructures to support varying technical and communication environments and will be capable of achieving what the Army expects to be “efficient, three minutes or less identity match times and data updating.”

NXGBCC is one of four existing programmed “materiel new solutions” that support the Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028 AimPoint Force Structure Initiative. This is the primary means by which the Army intends to build its MDO capability, while its MDO doctrine drives what types of weapon systems and equipment the Army procures, what types and numbers of soldiers are needed, the organizational structure of the Army, and what type of training is required.

“According to the Army, the AimPoint Force is to be a flexible force structure,” and “while little change is expected at brigade level and below, the Army suggests major changes will occur at higher echelons – division, corps, and theater command – that have primarily played a supporting role in counterinsurgency operations such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said the U.S. Congressional Research Service (CRS) in an 2021 defense primer.

“Under MDO, higher field headquarters will now be required to take the lead in coordinating large-scale campaigns against well-armed nation-states such as Russia and China,” CRS said, adding that the Army noted that “the AimPoint Force will be resource-informed, meaning it will be subject to budget constraints and political considerations. Because of the geographic distinctions between the European and Indo-Pacific theaters, individual higher-echelon AimPoint formation force structure will likely differ by theater as opposed to current one-size-fits-all units.”

NXGBCC integrates with the Identity Intelligence Repository (I2AR), one of the four programmed “materiel new solutions” to support the Army’s 2028 AimPoint Force. I2AR will serve as an analytical tool to produce, manage, and disseminate DOD’s Biometrically Enabled Watchlist (BEWL) as well as to extend opportunities for system and data integration with enhanced analytic data sharing across the Army and Intelligence Community (IC) partners.

Analysts will use I2AR to conduct analysis and develop intelligence reports in support of DOD and national community missions and will absorb the legacy Biometric Identity Intelligence Resource (BI2R), which is the unique software-based analytic production system used by DOD’s intelligence analysts to create products like the Biometric Enabled Watchlist. I2AR will integrate BI2R’s functionality, as well as its “elasticity, encryption, and open-source software” to ensure interoperability with DOD, IC, and external partners.

The Project Manager, Terrestrial Sensors (PM-TS), located at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, is assigned to execute the NXGBCC program. PM-TS procures, fields, and supports numerous state-of-the-art ground sensor systems globally, including within the United States at the southwestern border, and in the National Capital Region of Washington, D.C.

The PM-TS portfolio includes state-of-the-art sensors and networks that gather, integrate, and disseminate full-motion video, acoustic, seismic, laser, radar, and target data, ultimately acting as the ever-present “eyes of the battlefield.”

In 2020, The U.S. Army Futures Command‘s Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Center (C5ISR) began deploying and testing software to identify persons of interest in real time, and is intended to allow the Program Executive Office for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors (PEO IEW&S) to migrate data from BAT-A to a database that meets the federal government’s electronic biometric transmission specifications.

Adhering to these specifications is essential to the success of full-scale fielding of NXGBCC. Last November, the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DOD) Inspector General (DODIG) reported that some biometric devices of the armed services and combatant commands “did not have the ability to encrypt data stored on them because current DOD biometrics policy does not specify information security standards or require encryption capabilities on biometric devices.”

Additionally, the DODIG said, “DOD did not consistently provide certification of destruction or sanitization of biometric data when biometric devices were turned in for disposal.”

The DOD IG’s audit “was intended to assess and help prevent unauthorized personnel, including adversaries, access to sensitive personal information that could jeopardize the safety of both U.S. and partner forces,” DOD IG Robert Storch said when releasing his office’s report, Evaluation of the Control and Accountability of DOD Biometric Data Collection Technologies.

Storch said that “improving DOD-wide standards for encryption and data protection requirements for biometric devices [will] help to reduce the risks of inadvertent release of such sensitive information.”

During the two days of testing at Fort Leonard Wood, soldiers with no experience using biometrics collection equipment, and with less than four hours of training on two devices, performed enrollment tasks at six stations indoors and outdoors with assistance from engineers, in both connected and disconnected environments to reflect real-use situations. The soldiers said the NXGBCC devices and software were easy to navigate. The participants worked with NXGBCC engineers to provide beneficial feedback and to make any needed adjustments to the systems.

The soldiers entered biometric data into ABIS using the devices, a process that took about a minute to return results from ABIS, depending on connectivity. Using legacy equipment, the process can take as long as 15 minutes.

“The beauty was it provides a capability where you’re searching [for a] submission against not only the 30 million encounters and over 13 million identities in DOD ABIS, but you’re also searching it against the largest unsolved latent fingerprint file in the government, 500,000 unsolved latent prints,” Church said.

The soldiers suggested ways to improve the systems that included adding additional web cameras, screen protectors for smartphones, and peripheral support to swipe identification cards to collect biographical information.

The Fort Leonard Wood Soldier Touch Point initiative is part of a dynamic strategy to ensure NXGBCC’s success. Along with the STP, NXGBCC events include a Requirements Evidence Demonstration, Government Acceptance Test, and ICA-V Independent Security Control Assessor Validator.

NXGBCC will be showcased this August at the Titan Warrior exercise at Camp Shelby, Louisiana. Titan Warrior is a two-week long exercise where soldiers train on job-specific tasks. The exercise will provide an opportunity for soldiers to perform detainee biometric enrollment simulations using the system and peripherals.

“We’ll get more feedback from those folks on how they can integrate both biometrics and these devices into their operations,” Church said.

Article Topics

biometric enrollment  |  biometrics  |  Department of Defense  |  Next Generation Biometric Collection Capability (NXGBCC)  |  research and development  |  U.S. Army  |  U.S. Government