House advances bill to require plan for deploying AI, new sensor tech at US borders

The US House passed bipartisan legislation that, if passed in the Senate and signed by President Joe Biden, would require the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to prepare a plan to identify, integrate, and deploy new, innovative, disruptive, or other emerging or advanced technologies including AI and machine learning “to enhance or address capability gaps in border security operations.”

This legislation was introduced in April by Rep. Lou Correa and Morgan Luttrell following the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) announcement of its “Artificial Intelligence Roadmap.” The roadmap detailed DHS’s 2024 plans, including its testing of technologies that deliver meaningful benefits to the American public while advancing homeland security and ensuring that individuals’ privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties are protected.

“New, bleeding-edge technology that is already available for commercial use would give our hard-working officers the tools they need to keep us safe,” Correa said at the time.

Passed by the House this week, the Emerging Innovative Border Technologies Act would require the Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Department of Homeland Security Under Secretary for Science and Technology to submit a plan within 180 days of becoming law to the House Committee on Homeland Security and the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on how to incorporate AI, machine-learning, automation, fiber-optic sensing technology, nanotechnology, optical and cognitive radar, modeling and simulation technology, hyperspectral and LIDAR sensors, imaging, identification, and categorization systems, or other emerging or advanced technologies to better secure US land borders.

The House Committee on Homeland Security’s report that accompanied the bill, H.R. 7832, says “technological solutions can help keep border security personnel safe as well as enable a more effective response to life-threatening situations and cases of illicit smuggling and trafficking. For example, the implementation of remote sensing technologies like infrared cameras and ground-based sensors can help law enforcement detect and respond to migrants crossing in remote and deadly conditions, as well as cases of human trafficking and smuggling.”

“In addition,” the Committee’s report says, “artificial intelligence-supported image recognition systems can help detect and classify illicit substances at ports of entry, allowing CBP Officers to more accurately seize contraband. H.R. 7832 would enable Congress to better equip frontline personnel with the tools and resources necessary to secure and protect the United States borders by requiring the Secretary of Homeland Security to submit a plan that identifies, integrates, and deploys innovative technologies for border security. This plan will include metrics and key performance parameters for technologies as well as an assessment of the privacy impact of deployed technologies on border communities.”

Correa said in a statement that “border security means keeping drugs and other negative elements away from our communities – and cutting-edge technology that is already available for commercial use gives our hard-working officers the tools they need to keep us safe. Through this bipartisan effort, Congress will better understand how our officers can use new technology to stop smugglers crossing in remote and deadly conditions, and hopefully deliver our officers the resources they so desperately need. I look forward to seeing this legislation pass the United States Senate and make its way to President Biden’s desk.”

“As cartels and foreign adversary operations become more sophisticated amidst the ongoing border crisis, the United States must deploy the latest and most advanced technologies available to our borders to disrupt these threats,” Luttrell added. “I’m proud of the bipartisan work we’ve done with Congressman Correa. I’ll continue to push for effective measures to safeguard our country and enforce our laws.”

The plan also requires DHS to identify technologies used by other federal departments or agencies that are “not currently in use by CBP that could assist in addressing capability gaps in border security,” and to “conduct an analysis CBP’s available authorities to procure technologies and an assessment of whether additional or alternative authorities are needed.”

The plan would also require “information on how CBP plans to scale existing programs related to emerging or advanced technologies and a description of each planned security-related technology program, along with the privacy and security impacts of these technology programs on border communities,” and to “identify CBP legacy border technology programs that could be phased out and replaced and the associated cost estimates of doing so.”

Additionally, “the plan must also include information relating to how CBP is coordinating with DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate to research and develop new, innovative, disruptive or emerging technologies; identify security-related technologies that are in development or deployed by the private and public sector to satisfy the mission needs of CBP; incentivize the private sector to develop technologies to help CBP meet mission needs; and identify and assess ways to increase communication and collaboration with the private sector.”

Finally, the plan must also include data on “metrics and key performance parameters for evaluating the effectiveness of CBP’s efforts to identify, integrate, and deploy new innovative, disruptive and emerging technologies.”

The legislation also gives the CBP commissioner the ability to authorize one or more CBP Innovation Teams to research and adapt commercial technologies that are new, innovative, disruptive, or otherwise emerging or advanced to enhance border security operations and assess potential outcomes of the utilizing emerging or advanced technologies.

Each CBP Innovation Team would be required to have operating procedures that specify roles and responsibilities as well as protocols for entering into agreements to rapidly transition technologies into new or existing programs of record. Each team would also be required to have planning and strategic goals.

It’s unclear whether the legislation will be passed in the Senate, even though the bill had wide bipartisan support in the House and has been free of controversy. The major hangup in the Senate will be whether it can be passed out of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and sent to the full Senate for a vote before the end of this Congress in January.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  border security  |  DHS  |  DHS S&T  |  facial recognition  |  legislation  |  national security  |  U.S. Government