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Biometric identification gear developed in West Virginia
is being used at the West Virginia National Guard’s
headquarters buildings, as well as 10 field locations in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
Iris-scanning identification technology produced through
the U.S. Department of Defense’s Biometrics Fusion Center
in Clarksburg is being used to control access to key offices
in the Guard’s headquarters building.
Across Coonskin Drive, fingerprint-scanning gear is being
used to control access to the National Guard’s Operations
Center.
“We’re using their inventions and creations and
testing them out,” said Army Maj. Gen. Allen E. Tackett,
the state’s adjutant general, whose office suite access is
controlled by an iris-scanning device.
“This allows the [biometrics center] to test the
reliability and durability of their equipment, while we get
the benefit of faster and more secure access control,”
said Lt. Col. Jim Hoyer, the West Virginia National
Guard’s Homeland Security liaison.
While both the iris- and fingerprint-centered biometric
devices at the Coonskin Drive headquarters are being used on
a trial basis, 10 portable, containerized biometric
identification units developed through the BFC and
manufactured in Morgantown are being used in the field in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Biometric Identification System for Access (BISA)
modules were reportedly produced in response to the bombing
of an American dining hall in Mosul, Iraq, in December 2004.
“BISA was integrated here in West Virginia under an
extremely tight time constraint,” said David M. Lohman,
deputy director of the Biometrics Fusion Center. “Azimuth
Corporation of Morgantown produced the first prototype
within a month. Within another month, 10 of them were in the
field and in use.”
Nine of the 10 BISA units were delivered to the Persian
Gulf last August by C-130s from Charleston’s 130th Airlift
Wing. The biometric units are used primarily to screen
foreign personnel seeking to enter or work at American
military bases.
“The BISAs have already been successful in interdicting
unauthorized personnel” attempting to gain access to the
bases, Lohman said.
Other biometric gear developed by the BFC is being used
by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), and
the Department of Defense’s U.S. Northern Command, which
provides command and control functions for homeland defense.
The U.S. Air Force is interested in using biometrics to
control all access points at one demonstration base, to not
only improve security, but to keep tabs on the location of
base personnel.
“One of the lessons we learned from the 9/11 attack on
the Pentagon was that you don’t want to be in the position
where you don’t really know who’s in a building at the
time of an attack,” said Lohman.
“In the next decade, I think we’ll see this kind of
equipment at all critical access points on military bases
across the nation,” Lohman said, after watching Tackett
demonstrate the use of the iris scanner at the entrance to
his office suite.
Specially trained West Virginia National Guard Civil
Support units are among military units tasked with
responding to an attack or natural disaster in Washington,
D.C. “They will be biometrically scanned so that they will
have rapid access to Washington” in such an event, Hoyer
said.
Military officials are considering using biometric gear
to scan and track evacuees leaving the nation’s capital
following an emergency and arriving at shelter areas. “We
want to make sure no one gets lost, and make sure that
everyone is getting the services they need,” Hoyer said.
Lohman said biometrics technology is being developed to
positively identify people not only by their irises and
fingerprints. “People are looking at voice authentication,
facial recognition, ears, even a person’s gait,” he
said.
To contact staff writer Rick Steelhammer, use e-mail or
call 348-5169.
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