We all know the amazing dexterity of the fingerprint scanning and retrieval system of the FBI works and how it helps fight crime locally and internationally. The FBI now wants to upgrade its entire system to include biometric genetic IDs and facial scanning. This is ages ahead from the days when the Police mailed in an ink-splotched card to the FBI. The agency would then check it by hand against millions of other index cards, and it could take as long as two months for a match to return. Today, the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System processes around 150,000 sets of prints per day and can respond to a request in as little as 15 minutes. Lockheed Martin was awarded a multiyear contract in February to develop the system, and the company is currently conducting a trade study to determine what sort of biometric technologies should be incorporated into it. Lockheed isn't building the various scanners that police will be using to collect data, but rather is determining which ones will be compatible. NGI will involve some serious hardware, such as a massive amount of data storage for the various high-resolution images of faces or irises that could become part of the system. Like the FBI's current fingerprint system, NGI will be software-based, providing data to whichever agency or police department has the compatible biometric collection gear. Could they also use cloud computing? Until Lockheed's trade study is finished, there's no telling which particular devices will be folded into the project. And neither Lockheed nor the FBI will discuss the anticipated amount of storage, or other hard numbers, such as how fast the system could return results.

The FBI's Next Generation Identification (NGI) system, which could cost as much as $1 billion over its 10-year life cycle, will create an unprecedented database of biometric markers a distinctive scar or a lopsided jaw line could mean the difference between a cold case and closed one in this almost DNA like biometric data. Privacy watchdogs are in a panic as they may never fully understand how safe the common man would be and if these biometric data sets are being collected from innocent civilians or just the criminals.

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