In this Saturday, Nov. 28, 2015 photo, Syrian refugee children play at a temporary refugee camp in Irbil, northern Iraq.

In this Saturday, Nov. 28, 2015 photo, Syrian refugee children play at a temporary refugee camp in Irbil, northern Iraq. AP Photo/Seivan M. Salim

US Considers Using Portable DNA Labs, Iris Scans to Vet Syrian Refugees

Throughout the Syrian civil war the UN has relied on portable eye-scanning machines to register fleeing Syrians, but the US has yet to make use of that data.

The U.S. government is considering a handful of new technologies to strengthen and potentially hasten the screening of Syrian refugees. 

Mobile DNA analyzers and iris-recognition systems are among the tools under consideration or recently deployed, as the Obama administration strives to let in thousands of individuals escaping Bashar al-Assad's regime and keep out terrorists.

Meanwhile, partners at the United Nations are scouring social media posts to verify the circumstances of people claiming to be Syrian refugees. 

The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program is planning to pilot an initiative, in cooperation with the UN, to use iris scans collected by the UN’s refugee agency, according to the Department of Homeland Security. 

Throughout the Syrian civil war, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, has relied on portable eye-scanning machines to register the identities of fleeing Syrians, but the United States has not made use of the highly reliable biometric data. That may change. 

In the pilot with UNHCR, iris-matching tools will verify applicants’ identities when they appear for their resettlement interviews with U.S. officials, according to DHS.

Another trial program involves "rapid DNA" desktop-size labs.

Processing cheek swabs from children and accompanying adults, which is required to prevent child trafficking, can take weeks.

There are new machines that enable any DHS employee to run a test and confirm a match in about 60 minutes. But the department last year delayed a scheduled field test until consent paperwork and language differences could be hashed out. 

Both the iris and rapid DNA pilot projects are in the planning stages, according to DHS. 

“We are constantly looking for ways to make the process as efficient as possible without cutting corners on security,” said DHS spokesman Daniel Cosgrove. 

President Barack Obama in September committed to allowing 10,000 Syrian refugees into the country, when confronted with a backlog of 23,092 cases referred by UNHCR. The United States has accepted around 2,000 Syrian refugees since 2011.

But ever since a fraudulent Syrian passport was found near the body of one of the Paris attackers in November, the screening process for Syrian refugees has come into question. 

Questions about immigration security checks, in general, multiplied earlier this month, when a husband and wife shot 14 people dead at an office holiday party in San Bernardino, California. The woman, Tashfeen Malik, cleared multiple U.S. background checks to obtain a fiancée visa. Early media reports indicated that Malik had posted social media messages declaring support for jihad, although FBI Director James Comey said today the attackers sent only private online messages that wouldn't have been spotted by U.S. officials. 

It was only in the last year that Homeland Security began several pilots to add "appropriate social media” evaluations into its assessments for certain immigrant categories, DHS spokeswoman Marsha Catron said. She declined to specify whether refugees are one of the test populations. 

"The department is actively considering additional ways to incorporate the use of social media review in its various vetting programs," Catron said in a statement emailed to reporters. 

UNHCR, usually the first stop on any Syrian's years-long journey to legal U.S. refugee status, already consults social media during initial interviews to confirm an applicant's story. 

The agency relies on open source information, including Google searches and public social media posts, because the agency typically does not have access to classified government information, said Larry Yungk, UNHCR senior resettlement officer. 

"Just as a minimum, we plug in variations of names on the Internet. And you surprisingly find sources very quickly," said Yungk, whose three-person office coordinates programs for 27 countries. "We don't have the intelligence capacity of the NSA or the CIA."

During UNHCR interviews, as a refugee communicates personal information, the interviewee might, for example, enter the applicant's original home address into Google Earth to make sure the location exists. Or if a refugee claims to have lived in a town hit by military strikes, the UN staffer might run an online news search to see if there was an actual bombing in the town when the individual fled.

The appeal of iris scanning technology is similar to that of Internet access at UNHCR. 

"We have gone to this technology frankly because we are in the field all the time," Yungk said. "Fingerprinting requires technique and trained operators."

At UNHCR interviews, refugees step in front of what looks like a toy View-Master, which captures an image of their irises, scrambles it with encryption technology, and then sends it to a remote database server for matching. The process takes seconds, Yungk said. The applicant's eyes are scanned during each encounter with the agency up until when the individual is referred to the United States.

The screening is done "to make sure that we have a continuity of identity," Yungk said. "Is this the same person who registered on this date? If someone came in at the very beginning and gave you the wrong data that would be maintained until the time the person gets fingerprints taken" by the United States.

The UN database catalogs the irises of about 1.64 million individuals, largely from Syria, he said. Typically, only the eyes of individuals age 7 and up are scanned because iris patterns change as children grow, Yungk said. 

In June, the U.S. government began automating the process of checking an applicant's biographical data, continuously, between the initial overseas interview and arrival in the United States, according to DHS. "Recurrent vetting" cross-checks a refugee's information against multiple agency watch lists and other potentially derogatory data.

"DHS believes this change will yield a significant improvement because it reduces or eliminates the need to resubmit interagency checks," Cosgrove said. 

A State spokeswoman said in an email the department "continues to make improvements" that are "focused on process efficiency" to its Worldwide Refugee Admissions Processing System, a key computer program that records refugee biographies and monitors the progress of an applicant from referral to entrance into the United States.

When a would-be U.S. settler reaches the DHS interview phase, Homeland Security staff begins biometric checks using mobile fingerprint equipment and photographs to save time, according to DHS. 

The department's biometric database is tied to a massive FBI "Next-Generation Identification" system, which can recognize faces, palms, fingerprints and irises. 

Privacy groups are paying close attention to the growing use of iris pattern and rapid DNA collections in the federal government. A key concern, evidenced by multiple open records requests, is a lack of transparency into how the data is stored, who it is shared with, and for what exact purposes.

Homeland Security has tinkered with iris-matching at southwest border stations on and off in recent years. Just this month, DHS Customs and Border Protection activated iris-scanning kiosks at the Otay Mesa pedestrian crossing to verify who enters and exits the United States.

"Iris is an excellent modality, but it hasn't reached mainstream law enforcement yet," Janice Kephart, former counsel on the 9/11 Commission and now a Security Identity and Biometrics Association board member, said of the UN refugee eye-scanning effort. "Screening against it might not yield much, but you have to start somewhere" to build a database.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.