UK and US plan realtime police database links

[mawilson 2,133]

UK and US immigration databases have been linked in an intelligence sharing

experiment that could lead to permanent trans-Atlantic data stores of wanted

and suspected people.

Data is already shared in an ad-hoc fashion between London's Metropolitan

Police and the US Federal Bureau of Investigations, but direct links between

databases have not been possible because different forces use different

standards to store and process data.

Troy Potter, biometrics program manager for US-VISIT, the US biometric

immigration programme, joined the British Home Office on secondment six

months ago and has just launched a test link between both governments'

immigration databases.

The pilot was a general purpose exercise to lay a clear path for information

sharing between US and UK government agencies, he told The Register.

It could lead "potentially" to similar links between UK and US police databases.

"I'm trying to help the UK...ensure future compatibility with the US so we have

similar standards that ease information sharing in the future," he told an

international conference of biometric experts last week.

"[it's a] pilot programme of information sharing to see, [from] data collected

in the UK and US, what else we can find out. It's been quite amazing that by

using just a few prints we'll open up lots more information," he said.

A Home Office spokeswoman said it had been "in discussion with a number of

countries", including the US, about information sharing. She refused to

comment on the FBI pilot.

Robert Mocny, acting director of the US-VISIT programme at the Department

of Homeland Security, called for more information to be shared globally between

government agencies.

Privacy laws should be followed "very strictly", he said, but added: "We cannot

allow to impediment our progress the privacy rights of known criminals."

Joseph Sensibaugh, programme manager for the FBI biometric interoperability

office, said US data sharing would in the future finger "suspected terrorists".

Also targeted would be those "remaining recidivist with alert populations", said

his presentation slide.

"It helps the Department of Homeland Security determine who's a good guy and

who's a bad guy," he said.

Other plans included links to civil government databases, and a shared network

of US and UK visa collection points that is currently out to tender in the UK.

"Our first foray was borders, we're now moving to the interior," Mocny said.

He said the "power of biometrics" had been demonstrated by the shared database

after it had been used to make 1,300 arrests. He did not say how many had

subsequently led to convictions. It had also identified 20,000 people with a past

criminal history. He did not say what use there was in a system that determined

that people had served and spent past convictions.

But Sensibaugh described in detail each of the nine murders committed by the

infamous Railroad Killer, the Mexican immigrant Rafael Resendez-Ramirez. Had

the shared biometric database been in place it might have caught Resendez-Ramirez

on one of his trips across the southern border and four murders could have been

prevented, he said.

Potter said the trans-Atlantic pilot would apply lessons learned about information

sharing between the IDENT biometric immigration database of the US-VISIT

programme and the FBI's IAFIS fingerprint database.

The US has been working on creating database links between the two agencies

since 1995. At present, the systems are updated daily, but the intention is to

create realtime links.

Source

[Mirorgate 0]

Interesting. who stores what where though? here or there? who has access to update it? DT's?

[arwensun1965 0]

hmmm very interesting, those on FBI checks from the UK would be checked out quicker, the implications of the private laws could be a big thing.