America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation has reached a new agreement with the country of Georgia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) to work together in fighting crime and terrorism. The collaboration will include sharing biometric data on suspected criminals and terrorists.
Quoted in an Agenda.ge article, FBI legal attaché Kathleen Canning, who signed the agreement along with Georgian Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Archil Talakvadze, explained that “now we have been engaged in the sharing agreement for fingerprints, and other biometric information such as facial recognition that now both of our countries can share and have access to,” adding that “it will help both of our countries more forward in fighting criminal activity as well as counter-terrorism and our efforts to combat terrorism in both of our countries.”
Canning did not further elaborate on details of the cooperation with respect to biometric data sharing, but it seems possible at the very least that Georgian authorities may be granted some access to the FBI’s Next Generation Identification system, the organization’s most comprehensive biometric registry. Developed by Lockheed Martin in collaboration with IBM, the NGI system went live in 2013 and is now poised to fully replace the FBI’s old hard copies of biometric data. It’s already yielding benefits in the FBI’s own criminal investigations in America, and could offer some advantages to Georgian authorities as well.
Even if the new collaboration does not involve the NGI system, though, the FBI’s wealth of expertise in using biometrics in its fight against crime and terrorism could have a lot to offer to Georgian security forces, and the MIA may be able to provide a good deal of useful intelligence to the FBI too. Indeed, it may be a hint of things to come as more organizations around the world consider sharing such data.
Source: Agenda.ge
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July 30, 2015 – by Alex Perala
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