RAND Arroyo Center Research Brief: Can Biometrics Help the Army Solve An Identity Crisis

摘要

The Army is having an identity crisis, and it affects both its wartime and peacetime operations. Simply put, the Army needs to ensure that the right people and only the right people can get access to its information systems, its weapons, and its many databases that serve the Army community. Biometrics-that is, physical characteristics or personal traits that can be measured quickly may offer a solution. But using biometrics raises some knotty legal, ethical, and sociological issues-for example, how to safeguard biometric information so it cannot be used for other, possibly nefarious, purposes. The Army has been studying these issues and has been considering the feasibility of establishing a biometric research center that could serve as a central data repository and carry out test and evaluation.