Biometrics has taken center stage since September 11 as an important
tool in the fight against terrorism. As I noted in Card Manufacturing,
November/December 2001, biometrics is one of the three essential elements
for a secure ID card. Prior to September 11, two U.S. committees were
working on two separate proposals.
The U.S. Banking Committee, ANSI-X9, proposed a fast track of its standard,
ANSI X9.84 Biometric information management and security, to ISO TC68/SC21 with the ballot period from July to December, 2001. Independently (but
in harmony with X9.84), the U.S. Card Standards Committee ANSI-INCITS
B102 developed a New Work Proposal (NP) for interoperable biometrics
(finger, iris, and facial) for ID cards. The NP was based on their U.S.
work for the U.S. drivers license. The approved NP was submitted to
SC17 in September 2001.
Although these were two different proposals in two different committees
for different objectives, they became linked strategically when the
JTC1/SC17 Chair recommended to its members that they consider counseling
their National Bodies voting against the Fast Track of X9.84 and instead
transpose3 it to an International standard to insure that non-U.S.
banking requirements would be met. The Fast Track subsequently failed
in TC68/SC2. The U.S. banking Interests discounted the concerns about
non-U.S. requirements and became concerned that this was a negative
attitude towards the Fast Track process itself and a power grab by SC17
for Biometrics work.
In November 2001, the U.S. standards committee, INCITS, (InterNational
Committee for Information Technology Standards) was planning a fast
track of three U.S. standards relating to Biometrics being proposed
by NIST4. INCITS formed a new U.S. Biometrics Standards Committee,
INCITS M1 Chaired by NIST, and subsequently forced the withdrawal of
ANSI-INCITS B10's Biometrics New Work Proposal and set about to establish
a new subcommittee to take over the SC17's biometric work.
At the time of this writing, the International Ballot for the proposed
new Biometrics SC is still underway, and it's a toss-up whether the
new SC will be approved by JTC1 or if the Biometrics work will remain
in SC17. However, when you read this the vote will have been completed.
Work was stopped on the B10 interoperable biometrics and no work has
been performed since August 2001. The work has been transferred to the
new ANSI-INCITS M1 committee as requested by NIST, and no significant
new progress is expected until August 2002 at the earliest. It probably
will not see any International work until 2003.
In the meantime, SC17 has started to prepare for Biometrics work and
has issued a new work proposal for biometrics logical data structures
for ID Cards. This work is desperately needed to support SC17's work
with ICAO5 on International travel documents. Already time and
effort is being spent on discussions of where the work should be performed,
B10 or M1 and if a new SC is approved, SC17 or the new SC.
This probably will set the pattern for all future international work
on ID Card Biometrics. Instead spending time solving technical issues
we will be spending non-productive time discussing who should do the
work. Invariably these strategic discussions will also pollute the technical
discussions making it more difficult to arrive at agreeable technical
solutions.
B10 is already faced with the question of whether we can participate
in the work for the new NP. A strange scenario, because a B10 member
has already performed most of the work as B10's delegate to SC17 WG3.
As a U.S. citizen, I am concerned how we are mishandling an important
activity vital to the security of our country. Make no mistake, this
is equally important (probably more important), as an international
issue. We have slowed down important U.S. work by a year and have put
the U.S. leadership on International Biometrics at jeopardy. We have
left a void in SC17 which will make it difficult for working on future
ID card standards.
Finding myself increasingly at odds with INCITS on the above and other
issues, I have decided not to volunteer for a third term as B10 Chairman.
My second 3-year term expired on June 1, 2002. Its unfortunate that
my six years of productive and rewarding work with the B10 committee
as its Chair has come to an end because of issues with the parent committee
(INCITS). However, I will continue to serve ICMA members by concentrating
as your representative to B10.
1 ISO committee for Banking, Securities and other Financial services-
SC2: Security management and general banking operations
2 InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards, an ANSI
accredited US industry standard developer organization, and parent committee
to B10: ID Card Standards Technical committee.
3 See Card Manufacturing Year end 2001 for discussion of Fast Track
versus transposition
4 National Institute for Standards and Technology, a US Government agency
5 International Civil Aviation Organization an International Government
agency