US to Keep Iraqi Biometric Database
Even though all of the troops have come home from Iraq and the United States military has pulled out of that country, the military has an interesting piece of information that they gathered while soldiers were stationed there and this is a rather large database that is filled with various pieces of biometric information and includes everything from retinal scans to thumbprints and other personal data. The thought is that the data won’t be used for user authentication but will be employed as a method for counter-terrorism in the future.
The part of the military that is responsible for troops who are stationed in the Mideast and Southern Asia has confirmed that the database that was compiled over a series of many years by the United States military will stay in U.S. hands. For a significant portion of the war, troops in the United States carried things that looked like viewfinders and were able to keep digital records of anyone with whom they came into contact. Whenever someone from Iraq wanted to join the police, they were issued a card that included biometric information.
The main reason why all of the information was gathered was to assist the government in telling the difference between Iraqis who were working for the betterment of their country and insurgents who were attempting to topple the fragile government. Even though the United States government has pulled out all of the troops from Iraq, the United States still seems to have a vital interest in keeping tabs on the citizens in that country.
