Biometric Identification Begins In California for Anyone Arrested

02-28-2011 • allvoices.com

California became the ninth state in which each county has activated Secure Communities, a fingerprint data-sharing program between local law enforcement offices and federal immigration enforcement agencies. Other states with complete activation include Texas, West Virginia, Florida, Arizona, Delaware, Virginia, Wisconsin and New Mexico. Brighthub.com reports that biometric systems are used for identification and authentication, measuring and comparing people’s biological and behavioral properties such as fingerprints and voice, for example. Thus, taking into consideration the definition (*) of biometrics as characteristics, all biometric processes inherently rely on biometric security measures. Biometric security measures can also be conceived as devices and systems which are designed to make something more secure, for instance a passport, by including a microchip containing data such as the passport owner’s facial, iris and fingerprint biometrics. Secure Communities The California Department of Emergency Services defines Secure Communities as a program between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Justice that automatically sends name and fingerprint information submitted through a federal file-sharing system, where it’s checked against both the FBI criminal history records and biometrics-based immigration records in the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Automated Biometric Identification System.