View allAll Photos Tagged Biometric
032816: Office of Field Operations, San Diego - U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched a biometric border entry and exit control pilot program at Otay Mesa, San Diego in an effort to identify and apprehend foreigners with expired visas who have surpassed their permitted duration.
Photographer: Donna Burton
032816: Office of Field Operations, San Diego - U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched a biometric border entry and exit control pilot program at Otay Mesa, San Diego in an effort to identify and apprehend foreigners with expired visas who have surpassed their permitted duration.
Photographer: Donna Burton
NEC's SmartScan is different. It starts with a modern user interface and intuitive screen utilizing Microsoft Windows 10 with modern touch, pinch-and-zoom and swipe features now common on all devices. Then it is housed in a visually pleasing, height adjustable, ergonomically designed kiosk with larger foot pedals for improved fingerprint and palmprint capture. #biometrics Learn more today - goo.gl/vDvaWH
032816: Office of Field Operations, San Diego - U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched a biometric border entry and exit control pilot program at Otay Mesa, San Diego in an effort to identify and apprehend foreigners with expired visas who have surpassed their permitted duration.
Photographer: Donna Burton
032816: Office of Field Operations, San Diego - U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched a biometric border entry and exit control pilot program at Otay Mesa, San Diego in an effort to identify and apprehend foreigners with expired visas who have surpassed their permitted duration.
Photographer: Donna Burton
Well this is it
Biometric Erotic Android
it was made by Rajii and he just made my day with this. Now she is just scanning Emily's pussy to confirm identity to her home and her belongings, is the ultimate in pleasure amd security!
032816: Office of Field Operations, San Diego - U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched a biometric border entry and exit control pilot program at Otay Mesa, San Diego in an effort to identify and apprehend foreigners with expired visas who have surpassed their permitted duration.
Photographer: Donna Burton
032816: Office of Field Operations, San Diego - U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched a biometric border entry and exit control pilot program at Otay Mesa, San Diego in an effort to identify and apprehend foreigners with expired visas who have surpassed their permitted duration.
Photographer: Donna Burton
Sen. Charles Schumer, (D-N.Y) makes opening remarks during a hearing attended by a panel of Department of Homeland Security senior officials John Wagner, deputy assistant commissioner of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Office of Field Operations; Anh Duong,
director of Border and Maritime Division of Homeland Security's Advanced Research Projects Agency; Craig Healy, assistant director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's National Security Investigations Division; and Rebecca Gambler, director of Homeland Security and Justice Issues of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, as they deliver testimony on the unimplemented biometric exit tracking system before the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, in Washington, D.C., Jan. 20, 2016. (CBP Photo by Glenn Fawcett)
Was not sure if I wanted to upload this. The inspiration comes from here. My series is as scary on first sight (I did all variations with my two sons and me) but this one I think is worth publishing as it shows the resemblance of Prozac05 with me. Believe me when I say that I just took our two biometric shots (for a new passport) and scaled them to the same head hight. Afterwards I just masked on half of my face out with a soft transition of 40 px. That is all. Our mouthes actually really fit. So do our eyecolors. My skin however...
NO smiling on biometric passport pictures...
All images available for licensing via me. I offer commercial and editorial pet photography on a commissioned basis. And with a pet picture database with hundreds of hand-picked images of dogs, cats, as well as horses, I might already have what you are looking for. All pictures here can be licensed.
For licensing and commission requests: info{at}elkevogelsang.com -
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© Elke Vogelsang
20220411_Kiboyo_SmilingBiometricKiboyo
032816: Office of Field Operations, San Diego - U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched a biometric border entry and exit control pilot program at Otay Mesa, San Diego in an effort to identify and apprehend foreigners with expired visas who have surpassed their permitted duration.
Photographer: Donna Burton
NEC's SmartScan is different. It starts with a modern user interface and intuitive screen utilizing Microsoft Windows 10 with modern touch, pinch-and-zoom and swipe features now common on all devices. Then it is housed in a visually pleasing, height adjustable, ergonomically designed kiosk with larger foot pedals for improved fingerprint and palmprint capture. #biometrics Learn more today - goo.gl/vDvaWH
032816: Office of Field Operations, San Diego - U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched a biometric border entry and exit control pilot program at Otay Mesa, San Diego in an effort to identify and apprehend foreigners with expired visas who have surpassed their permitted duration.
Photographer: Donna Burton
032816: Office of Field Operations, San Diego - U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched a biometric border entry and exit control pilot program at Otay Mesa, San Diego in an effort to identify and apprehend foreigners with expired visas who have surpassed their permitted duration.
Photographer: Donna Burton
032816: Office of Field Operations, San Diego - U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched a biometric border entry and exit control pilot program at Otay Mesa, San Diego in an effort to identify and apprehend foreigners with expired visas who have surpassed their permitted duration.
Photographer: Donna Burton
Blue-and-white Flycatcher (Cyanoptila cyanomelana)
Passeriforme Order – Muscicapidae Family
The blue-and-white flycatcher (Cyanoptila cyanomelana) is a migratory songbird in the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae. The species is also known as the Japanese flycatcher. It breeds in Japan, Korea, and in parts of north eastern China and far eastern Russia. It winters in South East Asia, especially in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Sumatra and Borneo. This species has been recorded as a vagrant from the Sinharaja Rainforest in Sri Lanka in 2014.
BIOMETRICS
Length: 16-17 cm; Weight: 25 g
DESCRIPTION
Blue-and-white Flycatcher is very common in Korea where it is summer visitor.
Adult male has most of upperparts cobalt-blue, including upperwing-coverts, flight feather edges and tail. The primaries are black. Secondary feathers show black inner webs. The outer tail feathers are white at the base, only visible in flight.
On the underparts, chin, throat, breast and flanks are black, whereas belly and vent are white.
On the head, crown and nape are shiny cobalt-blue. The lower part of the forehead and face are black.
The bill is black. Eyes are dark brown. Legs and feet are dusky.
Female is different. She has grey-brown upperparts, including head and face. Wings are blackish, with broad rufous-brown edges on tertials. Uppertail coverts and tail are rufous-brown with darker outer rectrices.
On the underparts, chin and throat are grey to grey-brown, with distinct creamy throat patch. Breast and flanks are whitish, washed olive-grey. Belly and vent are whitish.
The bare parts are as in male, and she has an indistinct pale eye-ring.
Juvenile resembles female, but young male has bluish uppertail-coverts, tail and edges of flight feathers.
The first-year is almost similar to adult, with buff tips on secondary wing-coverts and inner flight feathers.
Two subspecies
- C.c. cyanomelana, has black head, throat and breast.
- C.c. cumatilis, shows turquoise or azure-blue plumage instead of cobalt-blue in nominate. Face is mostly deep greenish-blue. Female is darker than nominate race.
VOICE
Blue-and-white Flycatcher sings mainly at dawn and dusk. Its song is rich, fluted and melodious “hi-hwi-pipipi, tsi tsi tsi”.
Calls are harsh “tchk-tchk”, or softer, with “tic” or “tac” sounds.
This species is usually silent in winter.
HABITAT
Blue-and-white Flycatcher lives in wooded areas in lowlands and submontane forests such as taiga, wooded slopes and gullies at up to 1200 metres of elevation. It can be also found in scrub, bushes and plantations.
During migration or on wintering areas, it can be found in coastal woodlands, parks and gardens. It may winter at high altitudes in Borneo, up to 2000 metres.
RANGE
Blue-and white Flycatcher breeds in Japan, Korea, parts of China and Russia. It winters in South East Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Sumatra and Borneo).
BEHAVIOUR
Blue-and-white Flycatcher often adopts upright stance with frequent slow up and down tail movements and flicking wings. These movements are used in several situations, such as visual contact between mates, aggressive display behaviour, or disturbances of preys for easier caught.
It hunts from a perch, swooping down to the ground for feeding, and coming back to another perch. This small bird feeds on small invertebrates, larvae and some berries.
It is usually seen alone or in pairs, and it is very active. It gleans insects in the lower branches or in under storey, but it usually forages at mid and upper levels of canopy. It also performs sallies for flying insects. It is mainly arboreal.
Blue-and-white Flycatcher is territorial during breeding season. Some displays occur, showing the male offering food to female during courtship. This behaviour maintains the pair-bonds.
Blue-and-white Flycatcher is migratory, and moves south to wintering areas.
FLIGHT
Blue-and-white Flycatcher catches insects in flight or by sallies.
REPRODUCTION
Breeding season occurs between May and early August.
Blue-and-white Flycatcher often builds its nest near the ground, sheltered by vegetation or branches. The nest may be situated in crevice in cliff, among the roots of a tree, or under the overhanging bank of a stream.
The structure is cup-shaped, and made with moss, some plant fibres and parts of lichens.
Female lays 4 to 6 pale brown eggs with some markings. Incubation lasts about two weeks, by female. Both parents rear the chicks and take turns for catching preys.
The Blue-and-white Flycatcher’s nest is sometimes parasitized by Cuculus fugax.
DIET
Blue-and-white Flycatcher feeds mainly on insects and larvae, such as beetles, moths and bees. It also consumes some berries, including unripe green berries.
PROTECTION / THREATS / STATUS
Blue-and-white Flycatcher is common or locally common in most parts of the range. It is uncommon in China.
This species is not threatened at this moment.
[Credit: www.oiseaux-birds.com/]
As the iPhone’s launch nears it becomes more common to get a myriad of impressive and shocking leaks. The latest such leak, courtesy of the popular KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, proposes that the next generation of iPhone will replace the home button with a so called ‘function area’.
Function...
www.techalert.pk/2017/02/19/new-iphone-come-oled-function...
032816: Office of Field Operations, San Diego - U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched a biometric border entry and exit control pilot program at Otay Mesa, San Diego in an effort to identify and apprehend foreigners with expired visas who have surpassed their permitted duration.
Photographer: Donna Burton
032816: Office of Field Operations, San Diego - U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched a biometric border entry and exit control pilot program at Otay Mesa, San Diego in an effort to identify and apprehend foreigners with expired visas who have surpassed their permitted duration.
Photographer: Donna Burton
When using this photo, please attribute: * Photo by NEC Corporation of America with Creative Commons license.
NEC is the world leader in biometrics fingerprint and facial matching technology, with recognition from leading independent organizations such as U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). NEC’s extensive portfolio solutions range from mobile fingerprint identification, facial recognition to integrated workflow management solutions that provide extensive database matching capabilities across multiple organizations. Learn how some of the nation’s leading agencies trust NEC with their public safety solutions after attending the AFIS Internet Conference.
032816: Office of Field Operations, San Diego - U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched a biometric border entry and exit control pilot program at Otay Mesa, San Diego in an effort to identify and apprehend foreigners with expired visas who have surpassed their permitted duration.
Photographer: Donna Burton
An essential edition to any bachelor pad, this hi-tech fingerprint
recognition lock is movie technology made real. Yes, it really works.
032816: Office of Field Operations, San Diego - U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched a biometric border entry and exit control pilot program at Otay Mesa, San Diego in an effort to identify and apprehend foreigners with expired visas who have surpassed their permitted duration.
Photographer: Donna Burton
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Office of Field Operations, Deputy Executive Assistant Commissioner John Wagner testified before the U.S. House of Representatives on the topic “About Face: Examining the Department of Homeland Security’s Use of Facial Recognition and Other Biometric Technologies, Part II”. Other witnesses are Mr. Peter Mina, Deputy Officer for Programs and Compliance, Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Dr. Charles Romine, Director of the Information Technology Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology. Chairman Jackson Lee speaks to the witnesses.
Photographer: Donna Burton
current ATMs will see a new design adopting a fingerprint biometric sensor by pressing yr thumb onto the sensor.....www.scientificamerican.com
032816: Office of Field Operations, San Diego - U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched a biometric border entry and exit control pilot program at Otay Mesa, San Diego in an effort to identify and apprehend foreigners with expired visas who have surpassed their permitted duration.
Photographer: Donna Burton
Users will register by choosing a Space Guard Name then undergoing a simulated biometric scan.
Ideum is working with Lowell Observatory on an upcoming exhibition all about asteroid science. The entire exhibition is a fictional school, Space Guard Academy, where cadets learn all about asteroids and "rank up" as they participate in different interactive learning modules.
Ideum is developing 5 connected interactives as well as a student registration station and a system to track student scores and ranks. Look for more information and pictures in the near future. To learn more about Ideum's Creative Services, visit our website.
New and old design of Indonesian passport. New one is computerized and has biometric feature (sans RFID chip). Photo courtesy of Ganbate Panda
[order] Charadriiformes | [family] Recurvirostridae | [latin] Himantopus himantopus | [UK] Pied Stilt | [FR] Echasse blanche | [DE] Stelzenläufer | [ES] Ciguenuela común | [IT] Cavaliere d'Italia | [NL] Steltkluut
Measurements
spanwidth min.: 64 cm
spanwidth max.: 70 cm
size min.: 33 cm
size max.: 36 cm
Breeding
incubation min.: 22 days
incubation max.: 25 days
fledging min.: 28 days
fledging max.: 32 days
broods 1
eggs min.: 3
eggs max.: 5
BIOMETRICS:
Length: 35-40 cm
Weight: 165-205 g
PHYSICAL DESCRPTION:
Black-winged Stilt (Pied Stilt)
is a black and white shorebird, perched on very long and fine pink legs, giving the bird an elegant gait.
The adult male in breeding plumage has black and white plumage with all-black wings and upper back with greenish iridescence.
Underparts are white, sometimes with pale pinkish wash on the breast.
Head shows white face and forehead, and black top of the crown. Eyes are red. The long, thin bill is black and straight. Very long legs and feet are reddish-pink.
The female in breeding plumage is almost similar but more brownish on the upperparts with sometimes greyish wash on nape and rear neck.
In winter plumage, both are similar to the breeding female but duller, with variable grey wash on head and rear neck.
The juvenile is paler than adult, with washed grey-brown crown and rear neck. The brownish upperparts show narrow pale buff fringes, and legs are duller.
VOICE:
The Black-winged Stilt’s calls are a sharp “kek” and a barking “ke-yak”. Alarm call is a monotonous, high-pitched “kik-kik-kik-kik-kik-kik”.
They are noisy on their breeding areas.
HABITAT:
The Black-winged Stilt lives mainly in freshwater and saltwater marshes and mudflats, shallow lakes, coastal lagoons, flooded fields and rice fields.
RANGE:
The Black-winged Stilt has wide range. We can find it in Australia, Central and South America, Africa, Asia, parts of North America, Eurasia, Hawaii and Philippines.
BEHAVIOUR:
The Black-winged Stilt feeds in shallow water, wading and catching preys on or near the surface. But sometimes, it plunges the head under the surface to capture some aquatic invertebrate. It picks up its food from sand or water.
Its very long legs allow it to walk in deeper water than other waders. This bird rarely swims for food. The Black-winged Stilt is an active forager, and it can employ several methods to catch prey.
This species is well adapted to nocturnal vision, which allows them to feed on windy, moonless nights. Stilts walk quickly, with long strides, wading into water.
The Black-winged Stilt is a migratory bird, moving to the ocean coasts in winter. European birds winter in sub-Saharan Africa. They are often seen in flocks of 10 to 20 birds, and also in mixed flocks with other species of shorebirds.
The Black-winged Stilt nests in small colonies of 2 to 50 pairs, and mated pairs defend vigorously their nest site and territory. They may nest in mixed groups with avocets.
They are gregarious and may feed in large flocks of several thousands birds. When alarmed, the birds often bob their head.
FLIGHT:
The Black-winged Stilt has rapid direct flight, with steady wing-beats. Legs are projected behind the tail of up to 20 cm, and neck is slightly held.
Over the past year, with the generous support of Innovation Norway, UN Women has been assessing the potential of leveraging blockchain technologies to address challenges faced by women and girls in humanitarian settings.
As part of this work, UN Women, in partnership with the UN Office of Information and Communications Technology (UN OICT) hosts a four-day Simulation Lab from January 29 to February 1, 2018 at the UN Women New York Headquarters.
This Lab enables UN Women to explore, in collaboration with the private sector, cutting-edge solutions that hold potential for closing gender gaps in humanitarian action.
Based on the results of the Lab, four to five solution providers will be invited to submit a request for proposal (RFP). UN Women intends to pilot two to four solutions in the eld in collaboration with its UN and private sector partners and with the support of Innovation Norway, with the intention to thereafter upscale the most successful solutions as part of UN Women’s Global Flagship Programmes for Disaster Risk Reduction (Gender Inequality of Risk) and Crisis Response and Recovery (LEAP-Women’s Leadership, Empowerment, Access and Protection).
Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown
032816: Office of Field Operations, San Diego - U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched a biometric border entry and exit control pilot program at Otay Mesa, San Diego in an effort to identify and apprehend foreigners with expired visas who have surpassed their permitted duration.
Photographer: Donna Burton
Over the past year, with the generous support of Innovation Norway, UN Women has been assessing the potential of leveraging blockchain technologies to address challenges faced by women and girls in humanitarian settings.
As part of this work, UN Women, in partnership with the UN Office of Information and Communications Technology (UN OICT) hosts a four-day Simulation Lab from January 29 to February 1, 2018 at the UN Women New York Headquarters.
This Lab enables UN Women to explore, in collaboration with the private sector, cutting-edge solutions that hold potential for closing gender gaps in humanitarian action.
Based on the results of the Lab, four to five solution providers will be invited to submit a request for proposal (RFP). UN Women intends to pilot two to four solutions in the eld in collaboration with its UN and private sector partners and with the support of Innovation Norway, with the intention to thereafter upscale the most successful solutions as part of UN Women’s Global Flagship Programmes for Disaster Risk Reduction (Gender Inequality of Risk) and Crisis Response and Recovery (LEAP-Women’s Leadership, Empowerment, Access and Protection).
Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown
032816: Office of Field Operations, San Diego - U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched a biometric border entry and exit control pilot program at Otay Mesa, San Diego in an effort to identify and apprehend foreigners with expired visas who have surpassed their permitted duration.
Photographer: Donna Burton
Jeff Topping for The New York Times
A fingerprint ID scanner is used by the Border Patrol in Nogales, Ariz.
August 10, 2005
Hurdles for High-Tech Efforts to Track Who Crosses Borders
By ERIC LIPTON
WASHINGTON, Aug. 7 - The federal government has been pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the once-obscure science called biometrics, producing some successes but also fumbles in a campaign intended to track foreigners visiting the country and the activities of some Americans.
Hoping to block the entry of criminals and terrorists into the United States and to improve the enforcement of immigration laws, government officials have in the past several years created enormous new repositories of digitally recorded biometric data - including fingerprints and facial characteristics - that can be used to identify more than 45 million foreigners. Federal agencies have also assembled data on more than 70 million Americans in an effort to speed law-abiding travelers through checkpoints and to search for domestic terrorists.
The immigration control and antiterrorism campaign was spurred by the Sept. 11 attacks and subsequent Congressional mandates to improve the nation's security. But the effort has fallen far short of its goals, provoking criticism that the government is committed to a technological solution so ambitious that it will either never work or be achieved only at an unacceptably high price.
"I am not satisfied," said Representative Dan Lungren, Republican of California, who is chairman of a House panel that helps oversee the effort. "We are stumbling toward progress. I would hope we would be sprinting."
In defending its record, the Department of Homeland Security points to arrests along the nation's borders. In the past year, thanks to a new system that allows Border Patrol agents to check quickly and comprehensively the fingerprints of every illegal immigrant detained near the border, officers have identified 437 people wanted, previously charged or convicted of homicide; 579 who had sexual assault records and more than 18,000 others with records involving robberies, drugs, kidnappings or assaults.
The State Department said new facial recognition software had also uncovered visa fraud. The software identified 5,731 applicants to the annual visa lottery program who had doctored their names or otherwise cheated. They included people who each submitted at least a dozen applications and tried to disguise themselves with different hairstyles, glasses or expressions.
But the biometric effort still has a long way to go. The State Department, for example, recently started to test so-called electronic passports that contain a small computer chip that holds a digital photograph of the owner. [The department announced on Tuesday that it would begin issuing the electronic passports in December.] But even with the chip, officials at entry points will only have a bigger photograph to compare with the person seeking entry instead of a computer-based biometric analysis that could determine with certainty whether the passport holder was the legal passport owner.
"When it's all in place, there's still no real additional security or at least it's of marginal value," Representative Christopher Cox, Republican of California, said before he stepped down as chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security to become the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In all but a few locations, another new program, US-Visit - which has cost $1 billion and could exceed $10 billion - can only record foreigners' arrivals, not their departures, meaning it is far from delivering on its promise of creating an immigration tracking system.
The high cost comes from the extensive computer networks that must be built to tie together the data and make it accessible to United States officials around the world.
"We are still just in the formative stages of this," said Rey Koslowski, a political science professor at the University at Albany and the author of a recent report that questioned whether the program's goals could ever be met. "Now may be the time to scale back the mission."
The science of biometrics relies on unique human characteristics - including fingerprints, facial dimensions or the rings and furrows in the colored tissue of the eye - that can verify a person's identity. The government programs that rely on biometrics - at least eight are under way at the Homeland Security and State Departments alone - want to remove the uncertainty involved in using a traditional passport, visa or other identification document.
The enhanced screening starts at the 207 State Department visa processing locations around the world. Since late last year, almost all applicants must be fingerprinted and submit a photograph. The prints are transmitted to Washington, where the Department of Homeland Security compares them to a database of about five million people, mostly criminals, who may be ineligible to receive a visa.
In rural Kentucky, the State Department has put another biometric tool to work. At its visa processing center there, staff members use facial recognition software to compare applicants against a database of digital images of 45 million foreigners - collected from a decade's worth of applications - to see if any had previously applied under a different identity. The screening is being tested on small numbers of applications but will be expanded to all applications starting next year.
Facial recognition systems, which look at skin texture and the facial geography like the distances between the eye sockets or the point of a nose and an eyebrow, are much less accurate than fingerprint-based systems, requiring members of the State Department to examine every reported match.
But the system has been effective, particularly as a fraud-prevention tool in the competition for 50,000 special immigration visas that the State Department offers each year.
The software also spotted the same photograph of a Cambodian child in nine applications with different names, dates of birth and sets of parents.
The screening continues when foreigners come into the country. At domestic security checkpoints, visitors with visas are again fingerprinted and photographed to verify that they are the same people who were given the travel documents. If they are from 27 so-called visa waiver nations - mostly in Europe - they are fingerprinted and photographed for the first time. The federal government uses the data to check against watch lists and to share with law enforcement officials.
Perhaps the most effective effort so far is along the Mexican border, in places like Nogales, Ariz. More than 490,000 people were caught near Nogales last year trying to enter the United States illegally.
Five years ago, the only way to conduct a comprehensive criminal check of fingerprints was to fax the prints to a central processing center, which could take hours.
By last year, all 136 Border Patrol stations were linked to the F.B.I. fingerprint system, which produces results in two minutes.
The checks turned up 113,747 criminal record hits in the last 11 months, or about 7 out of every 50 detainees, compared with 1 in 50 before the new system was installed, a Customs and Border Patrol official said.
"Before, you might have a hunch that some guy was not right, but there was nothing you could do to check further - you just did not have the time," Luke Bilow, a senior patrol agent at Nogales, said.
Among those identified were fugitives that included Francisco Martínez, a Mexican wanted for questioning last year in connection with the killing of his cousin in Florida. Mr. Martínez had fled while the investigation was under way, but turned up at a Border Patrol roadside stop in New Mexico.
The federal government also intends to use biometrics to screen Americans. The State Department has assembled a database of high-resolution digital images of passport applications - including photographs - submitted in the past decade by 70 million Americans.
In conjunction with facial recognition technology, the photos may eventually be used to detect fraudulent passport applications, one State Department official said. Law enforcement officials at the National Counterterrorism Center now have access to the photos for investigations into possible terrorist activity.
At six American airports, A.T.M.-like machines automatically read fingerprints and do eye scans of the irises of passengers enrolled in Registered Traveler, a Homeland Security Department program intended to speed the movement of "trusted travelers," who also had to undergo background checks.
The cost of the program has been modest, $20 million in the last two years. But many critics question its value. Relatively few passengers take part because they must still wait in line to pass through metal detectors and have their bags X-rayed.
At Reagan National Airport outside Washington last Monday morning, one of the busiest times of the week, not a single passenger used the Registered Traveler ID machines for an hour, while hundreds of others passed through the regular checkpoints.
"It offers no benefit to our passengers," Robert Isom, a Northwest Airlines senior vice president, told a House panel in June.
Mr. Isom suggested that officials consider abandoning the program.
Starting this week, the Homeland Security Department is testing a system that automatically tracks people as they cross land borders by issuing visas that transmit radio signals. But critics have pointed out that a person intent on circumventing the system could simply give his visa to someone else to carry across the border, because there is no biometric check.
"If we ever catch a terrorist, we will only catch an extremely dumb terrorist," said a federal official who asked not to be named because he was criticizing the program he was involved in.
Representative Lungren said it was even more disturbing that the State Department accepted as proof of identity for passport applications documents like birth certificates that could easily be forged. In such cases, biometric-based technologies could actually help a smart terrorist.
"What we may have done, in some ways, is give terrorists or criminals tamperproof, fake ID's," he said.But federal officials say patience is required as the biometrics push gets under way.
"These things are tough," said James A. Williams, director of US-Visit. "They take time."
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