Customs and Border Protection is expanding its use of biometric iris recognition

Customs and Border Protection is continuing to expand its use of biometric iris recognition at the nation’s borders, a notable move given the somewhat limited use of the technology compared with more widespread applications like fingerprint and facial recognition.

The U.S. Border Patrol, the CBP subcomponent designated to secure the border, has significantly ramped up use of iris scanning over the past decade. For the fourth quarter of this fiscal year, nearly 69% of apprehensions facilitated by CBP involved an iris scan, an agency staffer familiar with the program told FedScoop. Now CBP is hoping to edge closer to 100%, the person said.

Right now, some of the agency’s computer systems are not outfitted with the cameras needed to take iris scans. In other cases, a Border Patrol employee might have the option to skip the iris scanning image on their computer system. To increase uptake, the agency is planning to send a software update later this month to require that an iris scan happens during those encounters, the person said. 

Forty checkpoints across four regional sectors have iris biometrics, a spokesperson for CBP told FedScoop, adding that 8,000 identifications were made with the help of the technology, along with fingerprints, last fiscal year. 

“Iris scanners are just a part of our biometric collection, like the collection of fingerprints and photographs for facial comparison,” said the spokesperson, who also cited a 2017 privacy impact assessment. “Iris biometrics helps us confirm identities where fingerprint matches are not possible or when there are match discrepancies due to degradation of the fingerprints.” 

The CBP spokesperson also confirmed that the agency has tested iris recognition within its Office of Field Operation, a separate component that handles official ports of entry, like airports.

“U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Field Operations conducted a limited iris biometrics field study using three collection methods, including on-the-move, pause-and-look, and kiosks, and opted to only move forward with facial and fingerprint biometrics. CBP no longer collects iris biometrics at POEs,” the CBP spokesperson said. 

A recent privacy threshold analysis does mention the use of biometrics, specifically taking a “photo.” A biometrics collection, the document states, could be involved with Unified Processing, a CBP system that’s supposed to standardize aspects of both the Office of Field Operations and Border Patrol. The document does not specifically mention iris technology. 

Another person familiar with the Border Patrol program — but who wasn’t authorized to speak about it on the record — said biometric iris recognition was deployed throughout the CBP component. The appeal of iris recognition is that the identifier is more stable across a person’s life, they said. The agency, multiple sources said, can encounter people whose fingerprints have faded because, for instance, they might work with cleaning chemicals or because they work manual labor jobs. In some cases, though, someone might have intentionally burned off their fingerprint, multiple people told FedScoop.

Patrick Grother, who studies biometric technology at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, explained: “Face recognition is built on learning from massive amounts of data. Iris recognition, originally, wasn’t done that way. The original research looked at images of the iris and wrote down a set of algorithms — as a set of procedures in mathematics — that would promise good recognition. That turned out to be true and an industry was built upon that.”

Iris technology is powerful enough to distinguish between identical twins, though the accuracy can still be impacted by the quality of a photo, the extent to which someone is opening their eyes, and people with certain eye-related health conditions, Grother added. Specific iris technologies are proprietary to vendors, which means NIST doesn’t have immediate access to them. 

The technology shouldn’t be called artificial intelligence, or confused with retina-based recognition, he said. 

The iris technology used by CBP is sold by a company called Iris ID, which sources described as the leader in the field. The company designs special cameras, which provide near-infrared monochrome lighting that can illuminate the iris — a capability not included in a typical webcam camera, Tim Meyerhoff, the company’s director, told FedScoop. 

Iris recognition has been in use within CBP for around a decade, according to sources and privacy documents released by the Department of Homeland Security. Documents from 2016, obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, reveal aspects of the program as well, showing that the Office of Field Operations did test the technology. 

Advocates of the technology say that it’s a game-changer for operations on the border and can help catch people deliberately trying to avoid detection in security databases and enter the U.S. — though like all technologies, privacy experts warn there are risks. Civil society and immigrant rights groups often raise concerns about how this technology can be misused. 

“What we don’t want to happen with iris is what happened with Social Security numbers. It got used for everything. Now everyone’s Social Security number is purchasable on the dark web,” Jake Wiener, an attorney at EPIC, told FedScoop. “I think iris is the last biometrics that that has not been broken in that way.”

There might be limited risks compared to facial recognition, since iris images can’t be run against images collected on a large swath of the web and other cameras, Wiener added. “It’s easier to operate and easier to automate, whereas iris recognition, because you have to get someone’s eye very close to a camera, [it] requires more hands-on work,” he said. 

Though iris biometric recognition remains less common than other forms of biometric recognition, its use is growing. Iris ID, for example, works with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and CLEAR biometrics, and also assists with border crossings in some countries in the Middle East. Meyerhoff says the company does not retain iris data itself, but can provide cameras and back-end technology for identification.