Homeland Security has biometric data on 259 million people

The United States Department of Homeland Security has biometric data of more than 259 million unique identities in its Ident database. The department is moving its database to Amazon Web Services.

The number of unique identities in the Department of Homeland Security’s database has risen from 220 million in 2016 to more than 259 million in 2019. In 2010, there were 120 million identities. It concerns the Ident database with images and biometric data that people must provide, for example, if they want to enter the United States. DHS shares this data with other US government organizations and foreign governments, Quartz describes. According to the site, it is the second largest biometric database, after the Indian Aadhaar.

The presentation from the Office of Procurement Operations also states that DHS expects the number of transactions based on the data for facial recognition in particular to increase significantly in the period up to 2022. To a lesser extent, this also applies to iris recognition. Transactions concern additions, queries and responses based on the Ident database. The system handles hundreds of millions of transactions per year.

DHS is in the process of migrating from Ident, the database it started in the mid-1990s. The database will be moved to HART, which stands for Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology. The department uses Amazon Web Services and expands the database with voice data, DNA profiles, data about scars and tattoos, relationships between people and ‘other biometric modalities’. The migration will enable DHS to leverage biometric matching capabilities from cloud computing and facial recognition innovations. The privacy organization EFF, among others, warned about the privacy risks of the plans.