WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is now collecting additional fingerprints from international visitors arriving at Washington Dulles International Airport (Dulles). The change is part of the department's upgrade from two- to 10- fingerprint collection to enhance security and fingerprint matching accuracy.
"Anyone who's watched the news or seen crimes solved on television shows can appreciate the power of biometrics," said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. "They help the legitimate traveler proceed more quickly while protecting their identity and enable our frontline personnel to focus even greater attention on potential security risks. Biometrics tell the story that the unknown terrorist tries to conceal, and it causes them to question whether they've ever left a print behind."
Department of State (DOS) consular officers and DHS Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers collect biometrics -- digital fingerprints and a photograph -- from all non-U.S. citizens between the ages of 14 and 79, with some exceptions, when they apply for visas or arrive at U.S. ports of entry. The department's US-VISIT program checks this data against a joint Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)-DHS watch list of criminals, immigration violators and known or suspected terrorists. Watch list data comes from several sources, in particular the Department of Defense (DOD), FBI, DHS and other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.
Checking biometrics against these databases helps officers make visa determinations and admissibility decisions. It also improves the department's ability to compare a visitor's fingerprints against latent fingerprints collected by DOD and the FBI from known and unknown terrorists all over the world.
Dulles became the first port of entry to collect additional
fingerprints from visitors on November 29, 2007. Nine other ports of entry
will begin 10-
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| SOURCE Department of Homeland Security Copyright©2007 PR Newswire. All rights reserved |
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