Transcript of Identity dominance the u.s. military’s biometric war in afghanistan - public intelligence
- Identity Dominance: The U.S. Militarys Biometric War in
Afghanistan | Public Intelligence
http://publicintelligence.net/identity-dominance/[5/29/2014
11:29:30 AM] About Contact Support Us FEATURED Identity Dominance:
The U.S. Militarys Biometric War in Afghanistan April 21, 2014 For
years the U.S. military has been waging a biometric war in
Afghanistan, working to unravel theinsurgent networks operating
throughout the country by collecting the personal identifiers of
large portions of the population. A restricted U.S. Army guide on
the use of biometrics in Afghanistan obtained by Public
Intelligence provides an inside look at this ongoing battle to
identify the Afghan people. Mohammad Zahid was not the target of a
joint military operation that came through his village in Khost
Province in late February 2012. However, that day the twenty-two
year old man who claimed to be a student was arrested and
eventually convicted in an Afghan court because his
- Identity Dominance: The U.S. Militarys Biometric War in
Afghanistan | Public Intelligence
http://publicintelligence.net/identity-dominance/[5/29/2014
11:29:30 AM] fingerprints reportedly matched those found on an
improvised explosive device (IED) cache that had been discovered
the previous year. Zahid was one of more than a hundred
military-age males that were scanned that day by the joint
coalition forces and Afghan National Army operation. As part of its
effort to combat insurgent forces interspersed within an indigenous
population, the use of biometrics has become a central component of
the U.S. war effort. Having expanded heavily since its introduction
during the war in Iraq, biometric identification and tracking of
individuals has become a core mission in Afghanistan with
initiatives sponsored by the U.S. and Afghan governments seeking to
obtain the biometric identifiers of nearly everyone in the country.
Though there is no formal doctrine or universally accepted tactics,
techniques, and procedures for using biometrics throughout the U.S.
military, a 2011 U.S. Army handbook and several other documents
obtained by Public Intelligence provide insight into the practical
use of biometrics in Afghanistan, showing both the level of
collection and the functional use of the data for intelligence
gathering, force protection and even obtaining criminal
convictions. By collecting vast amounts of information on the
population of Afghanistan, including both friend and foe alike, the
U.S. military has sought to achieve identity dominance by
undermining the fluid anonymity of terrorist and criminal networks
and attaching permanent identities to malicious actors. What is
biometrics? While the use of biometrics has become an increasingly
important part of the war in Afghanistan, there is a fundamental
lack of agreement about the doctrine surrounding the collection and
use of biometric information. An introduction to the 2011 U.S. Army
Commanders Guide to Biometrics in Afghanistan states that there is
no formal doctrine; universally accepted tactics, techniques, and
procedures; or institutionalized training programs across the
Department of Defense for biometric capabilities. Despite this lack
of formal doctrine, the U.S. military is currently using more than
7,000 devices to collect biometric data from the Afghan population.
Though biometrics can take the form of any measurable biological
(anatomical and physiological) and behavioral characteristic that
can be used for automated recognition, the biometric identifiers
being collected in Afghanistan consist primarily of fingerprints,
iris scans and facial photographs. Other biological
characteristics, which are referred to as modalities, that can be
used to identify a person include certain types of voice patterns,
palm prints, DNA, as well as behavioral characteristics such as
gait and even keystroke patterns on a keyboard. The U.S. military
currently uses three devices for collecting the bulk of the
biometric data harvested in Aghanistan: the Biometrics Automated
Toolset (BAT), Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment
(HIIDE) and Secure Electronic Enrollment Kit (SEEK). The BATis used
primarily by the Army and Marine Corps and consists of a laptop
computer and separate peripherals for collecting fingerprints,
scanning irises, and taking photographs. The HIIDE is more mobile,
providing a handheld device capable of collecting fingerprints,
scanning irises and taking photographs. Like the BAT, the HIIDE can
connect to a network of approximately 150 servers throughout
Afghanistan to upload and download current biometric information
and watchlists. The SEEK is also a handheld device with many of the
same capabilities of the HIIDE, though it also has a built-in
keyboard for remotely entering biographical information on the
subject. Used primarily by special operations forces, the SEEK will
eventually replace the HIIDE as the standard collection device for
the Army and Marine Corps.
- Identity Dominance: The U.S. Militarys Biometric War in
Afghanistan | Public Intelligence
http://publicintelligence.net/identity-dominance/[5/29/2014
11:29:30 AM] Airman 1st Class Michael Vue, 455th Expeditionary
Security Forces Squadron entry controller, scans an Afghan womans
iris in the waiting area of the Egyptian Hospital at Bagram
Airfield, Afghanistan, on April 16. Medical teams use biometrics to
identify and track the records for all incoming patients by
scanning their iris and fingerprints and then inputting the
information into a database. Photo via U.S. Air Force. Data from
these devices is stored in local and national databases which can
be searched and compared with other intelligence information to
help identify enemy combatants. All biometric data collected in
Afghanistan is ultimately sent back to the DODs Automated Biometric
Identification System (ABIS) located in West Virginia, where it is
stored and also shared with the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) and FBI. Partnerships with other nations also allow the DOD
to run data against biometrics collected by foreign governments and
law enforcement. Enroll Everyone Though the use of biometrics is
relatively new for U.S. forces, collection efforts in Afghanistan
have become ubiquitous, taking in data on large swaths of the
population from government officials to local villagers. In 2009,
it was reported that even foreign journalists covering the war in
Afghanistan would be required to provide their biometric data
before being accredited and provided access to military facilities.
The collection of biometric data is viewed as being so essential to
the war effort that theAfghan Ministry of Interior was enlisted to
help run a program called Afghan 1000, which provides a
comprehensive framework for collecting biometric data on the
citizens of Afghanistan. The program established a goal of
enrolling eighty percent of the countrys population by 2012,
covering nearly 25 million people. While the actual enrollment
numbers are not public, the Afghan 1000 program has been in
operation for several years, collecting data for every traveler
passing through Kabul International Airport, border crossings
andAfghan Population Registration Department offices throughout the
country. The stated goal of the Afghan effort is no less than the
collection of biometric data for every living person in
Afghanistan. At a conference with Afghan officials in 2010, the
commander of the U.S. Armys Task Force Biometrics Col. Craig
Osborne told the attendees that the collection of biometric data is
not simply about identifying terrorists and criminals, but that it
can be used to enable progress in society and has countless
applications for the provision of services to the citizens of
Afghanistan. According to Osborne, biometrics provide the Afghan
government with identity dominance enabling them to know who their
citizens are and link actions with actors. Your iris design belongs
only to you and your left and right irises are different, Osborne
said at the conference. A name can be changed or altered illegally
or even legally, but once your iris is
- Identity Dominance: The U.S. Militarys Biometric War in
Afghanistan | Public Intelligence
http://publicintelligence.net/identity-dominance/[5/29/2014
11:29:30 AM] formed at the age of six months, it cannot be altered,
duplicated or forged. The U.S. Army Commanders Guide to Biometrics
in Afghanistan recommends that all combat outposts and checkpoints
throughout Afghanistan make it a priority to collect biometric data
from as many local nationals as possible. During cordoning
operations, the guide advises soldiers to enroll everyone including
the dead, from which DNA is often collected using buccal swabs to
capture the cells that line the mouth. While Afghanistan offers an
extraordinarily complicated environment for the broad employment of
biometrics, the guide notes that the payoff to U.S. and coalition
forces is so great in terms of securing the population and
identification of bad actors in the country, that commanders must
be creative and persistent in their efforts to enroll as many
Afghans as possible. U.S. Army Spc. Robert Irwin, serving with 2nd
Platoon, D Company, 3rd Battalion, 509th Infantry Regiment, 25th
Infantry Division, Task Force Gold Geronimo, uses his Handheld
Interagency Identity Detection Equipment (HIIDE) to scan a local
Afghan mans fingerprints, Paktya Province, Afghanistan, Jan. 30,
2012. Photo via U.S. Army. In a section titled Population
Management, the U.S. Armys guide recommends that every person who
lives within an operational area should be identified and fully
biometrically enrolled with facial photos, iris scans, and all ten
fingerprints (if present). The soldiers must also record good
contextual data about the individual such as where they live, what
they do, and to which tribe or clan they belong. According to the
guide, popuation management actions can also have the effect of
building good relationships and rapport by sending the message that
the census is intended to protect them from the influence of
outsiders and will give them a chance to more easily identify
troublemakers in their midst. A checklist included in the section
includes the following instructions: Locate and identify every
resident (visit and record every house and business). At a minimum,
fully biometrically enroll all military-age males as follows: Full
sets of fingerprints. Full face photo. Iris scans. Names and all
variants of names. BAT associative elements: Address.
Occupation.
- Identity Dominance: The U.S. Militarys Biometric War in
Afghanistan | Public Intelligence
http://publicintelligence.net/identity-dominance/[5/29/2014
11:29:30 AM] Tribal name. Military grid reference of enrollment.
Create an enrollment event for future data mining. Listen to and
understand residents problems. Put residents in a common database.
Collect and assess civil-military operations data. Identify local
leaders and use them to identify the populace. Use badging to
identify local leaders, and key personnel. Cultivate human
intelligence sources. Push indigenous forces into the lead at every
possible opportunity. Track persons of interest; unusual travel
patterns may indicate unusual activities. Widespread enrollment of
the population or the census as the guide refers to it, is seen in
Afghanistan as supportive of the local government, particularly if
accompanied with a badging program that highlights the governments
presence in an area. Tribal leaders and clan heads can use
biometrics to control their local area which can lend authority to
tribal leadership by helping them keep unwanted individuals out of
their areas. Biometric Watch Lists One of the most essential
products of the widespread collection of biometric data in
Afghanistan is the Biometric Enabled Watch List (BEWL). Known as
the watch list, the BEWL is a collection of individuals whose
biometrics have been collected and determined by
[biometrics-enabled intelligence (BEI)] analysts to be threats,
potential threats, or who simply merit tracking. When loaded onto a
biometrics collection device like the HIIDE, the BEWL allows for
instantaneous feedback on biometrics collections without the need
for real-time communications to the authoritative biometrics
database, allowing the soldier to immediately identify persons of
interest. Once BEI analysts combine all of the data from biometric
enrollments, forensic evidence, and other forms of intelligence
they develop the BEWL in cooperation with numerous other
intelligence agencies and organizations throughout the government.
At least twenty-nine dedicated BEI analysts located throughout
Afghanistan work to create the BEWL and individual units can
request that specific individuals be added or removed from the
list. When a persons biometric data is collected in Afghanistan and
they are not matched to an entity on the watch list, the data and
associated contextual information required for enrollment are
transmitted back to the ABIS in West Virgina for matching against
all other collected biometrics, including the 90 million
fingerprint entries collected by DHS and 55 million from criminal
enrollments made by the FBI. If a match is found there, the
information is sent to the National Ground Intelligence Center
(NGIC) in Charlottesville, VA which generates a biometrics
intelligence analysis report (BIAR) detailing the history and
potential threat posed by the individual. NGIC then contacts Task
Force Biometrics in Afghanistan which notifies the proper unit in
the operational environment. Depending on the unit collecting the
biometric data, this process can take anywhere from a few minutes
to several days if the match is made against a latent fingerprint.
Whether a match is ultimately found or not, all information is
stored for further use in the BEI process.
- Identity Dominance: The U.S. Militarys Biometric War in
Afghanistan | Public Intelligence
http://publicintelligence.net/identity-dominance/[5/29/2014
11:29:30 AM] A figure from the U.S. Army Commanders Guide to
Biometrics in Afghanistan explaining the linkage between
exploitation of biometric information and enrollment on the
battlefield. Even when it is obvious that the people being enrolled
have no connection to the insurgency, the Commanders Guide to
Biometrics in Afghanistan emphasizes that all collections are
important. The guide states that identification of the population
in a particular area is essential to effective counterinsurgency
operations and essential to a units capacity for owning ground in a
combat zone. Units must know who lives where, who does what, who
belongs, and who does not. Mapping the human terrain is described
as key to security, allowing U.S. forces to know who they are, what
they do, to whom they are related and to help separate the locals
from the insurgents. To aid this effort, the guide recommends
demonstrating the value of biometrics to subordinates and having a
belief in biometrics so that the support staff and leaders do not
treat biometrics operations as a check-the-block activity.
Obtaining Convictions While biometrics are best known for helping
U.S forces identify and locate suspected insurgents in Afghanistan,
battlefield forensics has become an increasingly important part of
the Afghan justice system, helping to convict individuals of aiding
the Taliban by hiding weapons caches or constructing roadside
bombs. The U.S. Armys guide notes that forensics are being used at
an increasing rate by the Afghan criminal justice system, and
convictions are now occurring in the
- Identity Dominance: The U.S. Militarys Biometric War in
Afghanistan | Public Intelligence
http://publicintelligence.net/identity-dominance/[5/29/2014
11:29:30 AM] Afghan courts based solely on biometric evidence. The
U.S. Armys Afghanistan Theater of Operations Evidence Collection
Guide advises soldiers on how to collect various forms of biometric
evidence for forensic investigators to provide to Afghan
prosecutors in the hopes of obtaining a conviction. This reliance
on criminal convictions is part of a transition from law of
war-based detentions to evidence-based criminal detentions where
U.S. and coalition forces must coordinate with the relevant local,
provincial, or national prosecutors and judges to determine the
specific type and amount of evidence deemed credible by providing
evidence and witness statements for use in an Afghan court of law
to enable the National Security Prosecutors Unit (NSPU) or a
provincial criminal court to prosecute and convict criminal
suspects. The guide advises soldiers to enroll all subjects on-site
following a criminal activity and ensure that a full enrollment is
collected, to include iris scans, ten digit fingerprints, a full
facial photograph, and other biometric data. Complex instructions
are included on collecting latent fingerprints from pieces of
evidence and collecting DNA samples from potential suspects. The
International SecurityAssistance Force (ISAF) Guide to Evidence
Collection also contains similar instructions including how to make
plaster casts of footprint and tire tracks to provide to
investigators. A summary of the conviction of an Afghan man last
year for building and emplacing improvised explosive devices (IEDs)
that was based entirely upon biometric evidence. A study in the
January 2014 issue of National Defense Universitys Joint Force
Quarterly found that Afghan courts are increasingly looking for
biometrics as a component of the prosecutions case. Focusing
particular attention on the Afghan National Security Court located
at the Justice Center in Parwan (JCIP), which is described as a
model for successful use of biometric evidence in criminal
prosecutions, the study describes the prominent role that
biometrics now play in obtaining convictions at the facility. In
fact, the Afghan National Security Court has obtained convictions
in almost every case where a biometric match has been made between
the defendant and the criminal instrument. The study also found
that sentences are consistently longer for individuals convicted
using biometric evidence like fingerprints or DNA. Collections and
enrollments matter and increase the effectiveness of all other
operations the authors state at the conclusion of the study,
instructing their readers to treat every event as a means to
collect additional biometrics. The number of convictions in Afghan
courts based solely on biometric evidence is unknown, as is the
accuracy of the systems used for determining a biometric match.
However, we do know that the number of prosecutions is going up.
One such example is the case of Mohammad Zahid, the
twenty-two-year-old man arrested in Khost Province in February
2012. Zahid was arrested with nothing on his person. He claimed to
be a student and said he had no connection with the
- Identity Dominance: The U.S. Militarys Biometric War in
Afghanistan | Public Intelligence
http://publicintelligence.net/identity-dominance/[5/29/2014
11:29:30 AM] Taliban, yet a latent fingerprint from an IED found in
a cache the previous year along with cell phones, battery packs and
other bomb-making supplies reportedly matched his own. Zahid was
one of over a hundred military-age males enrolled in that village
in Khost on February 23, 2012. Now, he will spend years in prison
and, according to his testimony, does not know why his fingerprints
were found on the bomb-making equipment discovered by coalition
forces. p. 1 ZoomDOCUMENT PAGES TEXT
- Identity Dominance: The U.S. Militarys Biometric War in
Afghanistan | Public Intelligence
http://publicintelligence.net/identity-dominance/[5/29/2014
11:29:30 AM] p. 2 Page of 991
- Identity Dominance: The U.S. Militarys Biometric War in
Afghanistan | Public Intelligence
http://publicintelligence.net/identity-dominance/[5/29/2014
11:29:30 AM] Tags: Afghanistan Biometrics Center for Army Lessons
Learned U.S. Army 1 comment for Identity Dominance: The U.S.
Militarys Biometric War in Afghanistan Leave a Reply Your email
address will not be published. Required fields are marked * Name *
Email * Website A D V E R T I S E M E N T Share this: Related
Material From the Archive: 1. (U//FOUO) U.S. Army Afghanistan
Theater of Operations Evidence Collection Guide 2. (U//FOUO) U.S.
Army Commanders Guide to Biometrics in Afghanistan 3. (U//FOUO)
U.S. Army Tactical Site Exploitation and Evidence Collection
Handbook 4. Wheres the Evidence Against Staff Sergeant Robert
Bales? 5. (U//FOUO) U.S. Army Forensics and Warrant-Based Targeting
Newsletter 6. ISAF Joint Command Information Dominance Center
Paper: Police in Afghanistan 7. U.K. Home Office Draft Statutory
Guidance on National Security Retention of Biometric Data 8. ISAF
Guide to Collecting Evidence for Prosecution in Afghan Courts
Concerned April 25, 2014 at 4:04 pm Its only an edit away to
replace Afghan with any other country. Reply
- Identity Dominance: The U.S. Militarys Biometric War in
Afghanistan | Public Intelligence
http://publicintelligence.net/identity-dominance/[5/29/2014
11:29:30 AM] Comment Contribute Documents and Information Contact
Us Support Us Post Comment