Reprinted from the NATIONAL JOURNAL’S TECHNOLOGY DAILY

February 11, 2003

Security: Combining fingerprint and facial-recognition technologies is the best way to improve security at the nation's borders through biometrics, according to a recent report by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). As required under the 2001 anti-terrorism law known as the USA PATRIOT Act and a 2002 border security law, NIST studied "mature biometric technologies" in conjunction with the Justice and

State departments. A NIST laboratory used an Immigration and Naturalization Service

(INS) database of 620,000 individuals to measure the effectiveness of fingerprint

technologies, and a State Department database of 37,000 individuals to measure the

performance of facial-recognition technologies. NIST recommended that border security

officials obtain at least two digital fingerprints to identify visa applicants, and use a combination of facial- and fingerprint-recognition technologies to verify the identities of visa holders entering the United States. Any future biometric system also should incorporate existing technology standards and specifications, NIST said.