DHS seeks info on upgrading to cloud biometrics for national security database

The long and winding path to an upgraded biometric data management system for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has reached a request for information to find out what capabilities are commercially available from the private sector.

The RFI is for Biometric Identity Research and Development (BIRD), and in particular the transition between the legacy Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT) and the Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology (HART) by DHS’ Office of Biometric Identity Management (OBIM).

As this transition happens, OBIM wants to be an active participant in standards discussions held by organizations like the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM), International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS), ISO, IEC and ICAO.

Under the heading of “research,” OBIM is asking for information about vendors that have experience with biometrics research and evaluation, automated latent fingerprint matching, video processing and analytics, contactless fingerprint, palmprint, and plantar capture and comparison. The listed items include all of the common biometric modalities, as well as 3D biometrics, biometric fusion, digital identity technologies, anomaly detection, liveness and spoofing.

For engineering and prototype development, OBIM wants help with hardware, digital and analytical prototypes, creating user manuals and recommending alternatives. For standards development and technical support, participation in meetings with the organizations named above and providing recommendations on voting positions are in scope.

OBIM also seeks support for operational and strategic planning, HART subject matter expertise and how NIEM deals with biometrics.

By moving away from hardware-based matching and adopting a cloud-based microservice architecture, OBIM aims to enhance its capacity to process and store biometric data for over 262 million individuals. The cloud-based approach, traditionally, offers more flexibility, faster processing, and scalability, in a bid to allow OBIM to manage additional biometric modalities like facial recognition and iris scans while expanding services to new stakeholders.

Additionally, the HART system aligns with the IDENT Identity eXchange Messaging (IXM) application profile, an XML-based format for communication between OBIM and its partners. The result is a cloud-powered platform designed to meet future demands in biometric identity management.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  biometrics research  |  cloud services  |  data storage  |  DHS  |  Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology (HART)  |  OBIM  |  RFI  |  standards  |  U.S. Government