In the Global War On Terrorism, the relevance of biometric technology has grown exponentially. The military must achieve identity dominance, where U.S. military forces have the distinct ability to separate friend from foe by linking people to their previous identities and past terrorist or criminal activities. We can use biometric technology to achieve identity dominance and must deploy it to meet the requirements of force protection, actionable intelligence, and law enforcement. Establishing identity dominance through a comprehensive Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) will enable the U.S. military to identify friend or foe to keep America safer. This article was originally published in the September/October 2005 issue of Military Review and is included as a RAND reprint because its analysis is relevant to RAND’s work for the Department of Defense Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO).
