Hearing of the House Judiciary Committee on Deadline for Biometric Passports

Federal News Service April 21, 2004 Wednesday
Copyright 2004 The Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service

April 21, 2004 Wednesday

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE

SUBJECT: DEADLINE FOR BIOMETRIC PASSPORTS

CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE JAMES SENSENBRENNER (R-WI)

WITNESSES: SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN POWELL; AND SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY TOM RIDGE

LOCATION: 2141 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

BODY:

REP. SENSENBRENNER: The committee will be in order. Mr. Conyers and I will give opening statements. Secretary Powell is caught in traffic somewhere between the White House and here, but with Secretary Ridge's permission, we decided to get going.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

REP. JOHN R. CARTER (R-TX): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Secretary Ridge, we were talking-I want to get back to this identification system that we're using. The other night I happened to be wandering through, and my daughter was watching a television program about these women having their faces made over. And quite honestly, some of them, you couldn't recognize the person who started into the program after the plastic surgeons got through with them. Isn't that a risk in face identification? There's nothing more than the computer and-and reading a photograph rather than a human being reading a photograph. Isn't that correct?

SEC. RIDGE: Well, I would tell you that those who have looked at digital photography-and certainly, our National Institutes of Standards and Technology as well as the ICAO will probably admit that it is not absolutely 100 percent guarantee, as no data base would be. But even some material alteration of certain facial features could be detected with the right kind of technology.

REP. CARTER: And adding to that question, it's taking-we see right now in the biometrics we are proposing internationally that we're going to have a delay over our deadline of two, three years. So we're talking about an extension. And possibly someone's going to come and ask for further extensions. We-well, that question's already been asked.

SEC. RIDGE: Yeah, we already did.

REP. CARTER: Somebody courageous, as you pointed out. But if --

SEC. RIDGE: Then the undersecretary -- (off mike) --

REP. CARTER: -- if that's the case, then let's-let's just go on the assumption that we find that we have flaws in the face identification and we really wish we had fingerprint identification, we really wish we had iris identification, so we then propose we're going to put fingerprint identification in the biometrics, now we've got another three to four year delay while all the international community adds that. And if that's not sufficient we add iris identification. And we go through three extensions of re-doing biometrics in our program in order to reach the ultimate, which we're wanting to seek, to be able to assure that we're secure-as secure as we can be with modern science. Why not go ahead and do it now, one cost, one time, and get it all done at one time so that we don't have to come back and say it would have been better with fingerprints, so now everybody do fingerprints, later we'd do better with iris, now everybody do iris?

And later it would be better with iris, now everybody do iris? How can we put them all in one ship and put them in the passport now?

SEC. RIDGE: Well, I believe certainly the advocacy that we've undertaken within the department-I think it's administration-wide-is not wait for another occasion or another event to advocate the redundancy in the system. We're working very hard to reach an agreement and convince people around the world that we ought to, right now as we go about identifying and accepting the international facial recognition standard, to begin to build some redundancy in the system. The iris technology is still a little bit uncertain. There are varying opinions as to its reliability. There is-I --

REP. CARTER: Fingerprints --

SEC. RIDGE: There's more of constitutional or cultural resistance internationally to the use of fingerprints than there is a scientific one. Again, the failure rate is very, very low. And as we try to drive the international community to a single standard, we don't want to be in a position we have an American standard and an other world standard. We accept the international standard of facial recognition, and push as hard as we can and be as aggressive as we can to add one or two additional features to either the visas or the passports.

REP. CARTER: Well, once again, I more agree with Chairman Smith that we should be driving this train --

SEC. RIDGE: Well, we are.

REP. CARTER: -- and not the international community. We're the ones that got our buildings blown up.

Another-on this issue of people going overseas, the scientist who went to China for a funeral or a wedding or whatever and couldn't get back in. How difficult would it be for State to implement a program where universities or corporations or whatever who have people traveling that way can make a visa application to State to flag that passport to avoid these reentry problems? We had a similar problem with the chairman of Samsung in Austin, and ultimately it was resolved by making-by flagging the passport because he was traveling so much that it had to be identified. It looks like to me that would not be that difficult a program or expensive a program to implement to accommodate these people who have to travel and need to come back.

SEC. POWELL: Secretary Ridge and I are looking at that now: How can we carve out classes of individuals who-see no risk in this class of individuals and expedite their returning to the country.

REP. CARTER: They should have some responsibility to apply for that, too, I think. I mean, everyone's responsible for their own problems, and if they want that special privilege than then should be able-should apply for it and have it granted by State.

SEC. RIDGE: If I might just-I know our time is up, but before this hearing today I met with several university presidents, including the president of the University of Texas, and this is one of the issues that they raised. And I can just assure you that the secretary of State and yours truly, as well as the college and university community around the world, worked together to make significant changes in the student visit program. There are still some additional challenges. This is one of them, and the colleges/universities will partner with us to achieve that workaround. I'm absolutely confident of that.

REP. CARTER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank both these honorable gentlemen.

END