Jane Edwards
The Secure Identity & Biometrics Association has called on the U.S. government to use the Defense Department’s foreign military sales initiative as a channel to provide allied countries facing an influx of refugees from Syria with biometrics tools.
The recommendation is included in SIBA’s list of action plans the U.S. and international governments can implement in order to mitigate threats posed by terrorists that pretend as refugees, SIBA said Tuesday.
SIBA issued the list in response to the terrorist attacks in Paris and reports that terrorists might have used fake Syrian passports to enter Europe.
“Identity documents of course have a role to play in vetting refugees and asylum-seekers, but there are so many fraudulent Syrian passports and national IDs in circulation right now, those documents cannot be considered reliable in establishing a person’s identity,” said SIBA CEO Michael Dougherty.
The plan also calls for governments to equip relief agencies with funds and devices designed to capture iris scans and facial images as well deploy mobile biometrics tools for use by law enforcement officials in Europe.
Government officials should replace refugees’ identity documents with smart cards with the user’s multimodal biometrics data to improve identification, SIBA added.
