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Biometric Technologies and Counter-Terrorism

Colonel-B-S-Nagial

Colonel-B-S-Nagial


The world is coping-up with various problems such as document fraud, identity theft, terrorism, cybercrimes etc. There are new global regulations in place to use the emerging technologies. But there is a need to strike a balance between biometrics security tools and adherence to human rights while dealing with terrorism. One of the tools to counter the threat of terrorism is the use of emerging biometrics technology carefully.

Biometrics uses a person’s physical features or personality traits like fingerprints, faces, voices, or handwritten signatures to identify and verify the antecedents. Biometric systems offer automatic, almost immediate identification of a person by translating the biometric into the digital form and then collating and verifying it against a computerised database.1 The biometric tools include fingerprints, facial recognition, vein pattern, eyes, iris print, DNA, blood, voice, gait, signature etc.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions 2322 (2016) and 2396 (2017) dwell on the use of biometrics for counter-terrorism purposes, particularly in the context of border management and homeland security. Resolution 2322 (2016) calls on the member countries to share information about Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTFs) and other lone wolf terrorists and terrorist organisations, including biometric and biographic information.2 Further in its resolution 2396 (2017), the UNSC resolves that all member nations will evolve and put in practice various systems to gather biometric data, including fingerprints, photographs, facial recognition, and other appropriate recognising biometric data, to responsibly and adequately identify terrorists, including FTFs, as per the policies on the subject while duly complying with the domestic law as well as international law on human rights. The UNSC also encourages the nations to share this data among other nations and with appropriate worldwide organisations, together with the International Criminal Police Organisation (INTERPOL).

While implementing the resolutions passed by the UNSC, various countries have encountered gaps and challenges while using biometric technologies for counter-terrorism operations. Therefore I will reconnoitre tendencies in using these types of technologies in counter-terrorism, main challenges, and guidance developed to safeguard the use of technology for its intended purpose.

Various critical trends emerging in biometric technologies

Using biometrics in counter-terrorism operations is a fast escalating range of counter-terrorism-related applications for biometric systems, including authentication and verification equipment such as biometric passports (e-passports), biometric smart gates, and passport readers and digital forensics.3 The COVID-19 pandemic posed unprecedented challenges concerning biometrics to facilitate domestic and international travel. The extensive use of masks and fear of transmitting the disease via touch limited the efficacy of traditional credentials checks, including facial recognition and fingerprint scanners. As a result, many countries introduced touchless devices and iris scanners to authenticate identity while masks were worn.

Biometrics has become more predominant in detecting offenders, terrorists, and inimical elements in public places, with facial identification systems combined with CCTV video surveillance systems. Technology for identification has also been combined with Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) in a law enforcement and border control scenario, helping control many people by channelling and identifying them.

The use of biometrics in counter-terrorism operations is often linked to evolving and using emerging technologies. These techniques are used to identify individuals of interest such as high-definition cameras, matching algorithms, and Artificial Intelligence (AI), occasionally in combination with a linked database e.g., terrorist watchlists. And also use biometrics to protect critical infrastructure sites and facilities and soft targets from terrorist attacks. Biometric technologies may also help stop terrorism financing, facilitating augmentations to know-your-client (KYC) and customer due diligence (CDD) procedures and substitutions to financial institutions’ monitoring and keeping track of associated banking operations.

“The world is coping-up with various problems such as document fraud, identity theft, terrorism, cybercrimes etc. There are new global regulations in place to use the emerging technologies. But there is a need to strike a balance between biometrics security tools and adherence to human rights while dealing with terrorism. One of the tools to counter the threat of terrorism is the use of emerging biometrics technology carefully”

Many countries have made some progress in introducing biometrics for counter-terrorism purposes. There are strong local trends in this practice. Half of the European countries extensively use biometrics, but only a few countries have put it into practice in the Middle East region. In Africa, only fifty per cent of countries are using biometrics systems.

How biometric technologies are used for counter-terrorism could be summarised as under:

  1. Countries are intensifying the array of physical spaces, from border crossings to public spaces and digital spaces, across social media, biometric data is being validated.
  2. Countries use state-of-the-art technologies to capture, collect, process, and analyse biometric data to Counter-Terrorism.
  3. Many government officials such as intelligence agencies, national and local police forces, border guards, immigration officers and some private-sector actors e.g., contractors and suppliers, have been authorised to use biometric data.
  4. Some nations have taken initiatives to hasten the sharing of biometric data as part of counter-terrorism collaboration and sharing of information methods.
  5. Countries have more developed terrorist watch lists and databases linked with biometric databases, with biometric checks against INTERPOL notices and databases to recognise and spot inimical elements and terrorists.

“Many countries have made some progress in introducing biometrics for counter-terrorism purposes. There are strong local trends in this practice. Half of the European countries extensively use biometrics, but only a few countries have put it into practice in the Middle East region. In Africa, only fifty per cent of countries are using biometrics systems”

Challenges concerning the optimal use of biometric technologies in counter-terrorism could be summarised as under:

  1. Technologies has shortcomings and restrictions.
  2. Inadequate capabilities.
  3. Inadequate legal and administrative contexts.
  4. Due to an oversight of safeguarding the privacy and data duration of the data retention period.
  5. Strengthening of prevailing inequalities and disparities.
  6. Likely misappropriation of freedom rights of religion, expression, and association.
  7. Restrictions on distribution of biometric data and information to others.
  8. Non-availability of efficient solutions in the event of violations.
  9. There is a risk of scams and misuse of biometric information.

Though biometric technology has notably advanced its precision and steadfastness, technological shortfalls could still destructively influence its efficacy. Environmental factors like camera angle, lighting, and facial expression could impact the operating settings of biometric systems. This could cause a false match or non-match. While best-inmarket systems have resolved most issues, many nations have access to such technological systems. Establishing a professional user-base can also mitigate these shortcomings but imparting such know-how require training, resources, expertise and funds.

Although these technological capacity-building issues are not significant and can be addressed, significant challenges lie in developing good governance, institutional build-up, and legal and monitoring system. Such frameworks must be established before implementing the biometric systems. The absence of these safeguards for preventing the abuses of biometric technologies and data sharing could negatively affect worldwide cooperation, thus further undermining the regional and international counter-terrorism measures.

Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) report shows that many nations have encountered substantial human rights issues while using biometric tools and their data sharing procedures. Due to the lack of such norms, biometric technology could pose serious threats to privacy and personal security and its use for legitimate purposes such as mass surveillance.

There are also mounting apprehensions about racial partiality in implementing the strategy and use of these technologies, especially when combined with other evolving digital technologies like machine learning and algorithms, which have been shown to strengthen the prevailing inequalities based on racial and ethnic, and religious grounds. The special report on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism has emphasised that the biased effects of using new technologies in counter-terrorism measures are valid when using algorithmic purposes of such biometric technologies.

Financial Actions Task Force (FATF) has also recently highlighted that using biometrics for financial-inclusion purposes, including remote onboarding and financial services delivery systems, may aggravate the financial exclusion among various sections of the population. Given these concerns and the broader risk that biometric technologies may be used to encroach upon the rights to privacy and data protection, human dignity, self-determination and access to an effective remedy etc. People worldwide have raised many apprehensions and called for a suspension of the development and deployment of all biometric technologies until safeguarding all fundamental human rights.

Perhaps because of these significant challenges to the responsible use of biometrics, the sharing of biometric data relating to counter-terrorism remains inconsistent, despite the intervention of CTED, which encourages nations to share this data responsibly with each other as appropriate – with INTERPOL, and with other relevant international bodies. It is also revealed that the sharing of FTFs’ biometric data and information tends to be restricted, even among member nations with adequate capacity.

Moreover, the risk that biometric data may be stolen or tampered with, primarily through cyberattacks, is a significant concern. Although the use of biometrics makes forging credentials more complicated, the reading of data and the need to store biometric templates in remote databases pose a risk of theft and tampering, making biometric data vulnerable to malicious use. Moreover, biometric information is easily collectable and accessible. As artificial intelligence (AI) advances, ‘deep fakes’ videos and voices are more likely accessible to organised criminals, traffickers and terrorists.

“Countries have more developed terrorist watch lists and databases linked with biometric databases, with biometric checks against INTERPOL notices and databases to recognise and spot inimical elements and terrorists”

These complex challenges demonstrate the requirement for synchronised delivery of technical assistance and capacity-building for all the member nations, especially those struggling with introducing and using biometrics technology. The private sector has a role in the growth and progress of biometric systems in a responsible, human rights compliant manner, including cybersecurity measures to protect the data collected and stored. Various public-private enterprises have already been developed. Those initiatives should be supported and promoted at the national, regional, and international levels, emphasising the importance of ensuring that such partnerships respect human rights and promote a gender-sensitive approach.

Biometric technologies: Scope and adoption in India

Inconspicuousness affords terrorists and inimical elements with defence and operational advantage. Taking away this anonymity puts them at a disadvantage wherever they operate, and biometric technologies can help achieve this. Biometric technologies afford new kinds of digital identity data, new ways to collect it, and new opportunities for its use. Using biometric data to screen entrants to India dramatically reduces the risk of unknown individuals involved in terrorist activities in Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Middle East or elsewhere entering India unnoticed. Biometrics will become more and more valuable as a tool for authenticating identities in India’s new and deeply interconnected national security environment.

The Indian biometric market value has grown from $823.46 million in 2014 to $2.06 billion in 2020. India has witnessed biometric devices positioned in various sectors such as law enforcement agencies, local security providers, travel and immigration, etc. Furthermore, the use of Biometrics devices is set to grow further as privacy and security concerns increasingly become a worry amongst users.7 As per the report by TechSci Research, the Indian biometrics market stood at $778 million in 2016 and is forecast to exhibit a CAGR of 26% through 2022 due to several aspects, including government actions, increasing internet and smartphone penetration and rising demand for security and protection against identity theft and data loss.

India also faces many challenges, including cross-border terrorism, drug trafficking, and illegal immigrants from neighbouring countries. Now slowly but steadily, Indian security systems are also adapting the biometric system in Counter-Terrorism operations. Internal security issues in India canbroadly be categorised as:

  1. Terrorism in the hinterland of the country,
  2. Left Wing Extremism (LWE) in certain areas,
  3. Insurgency in the North Eastern States,
  4. Cross-Border terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.

Indian counterterrorism forces, at the centre and state levels, actively detected and disrupted multinational and regional terror forces. The National Investigation Agency examined 34 terrorism-related cases related to ISIS and arrested 160 persons, including ten alleged al-Qaeda operatives from Kerala and West Bengal, in September 2021.9 Officials in India remain concerned about extensive internet use by terrorist organisations for recruitment radicalisation and violent extremism.

Conclusion

Biometric tools are becoming omnipresent. Many stakeholders employ them, public authorities and private actors, corporations and individuals. They are used in law enforcement, criminal justice, innovative development initiatives, and identification and registration systems to prevent identity fraud and theft or authenticate humanitarian aid beneficiaries. Biometric tools have great potential for positive change in many societal areas. However, their use may also lead to abuses and violations of human rights and have at times become weapons in the hands of authoritarian or oppressive governments, enabling gross infringements on human rights. As such, biometric tools and data can constitute a powerful instrument in preventing and countering terrorism and violent extremism by facilitating efficient and targeted responses to threats.

  1. Woodward, John D., Biometrics: Facing Up to Terrorism. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2001. https://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP218.html.
  2. Security Council – Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC). https://www.un.org ‘ securitycouncil ‘ ctc
  3. United Nations, United Nations Compendium of Recommended Practices for the Responsible Use & Sharing of Biometrics in Counter-Terrorism (2018).
  4. CTED, The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on terrorism, counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism (2020)
  5. CTED, CTED Trends Alert: Greater Efforts Needed to Address the Potential Risks Posed by Terrorist Use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (2019).
  6. On behalf of the Committee, CTED has provided all 193 United Nations Member States with its desk reviews on their implementation of the relevant Council resolutions as of 18 November 2021.
  7. Understanding Biometrics and its scope in India. https://analyticsindiamag.com ‘ understanding-biometrics.
  8. Biometric Technology: Spreading Its Footprint In India – Forbes. https://www. forbes.com ‘ sites ‘ 2020/03/26 ‘ biometri.
  9. Islamic State has 66 known Indian-origin fighters: U.S. report … https://www. thehindu.com ‘ News ‘ National.

 

 

 

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