EPIC Pursues Privacy Impact Assessments for Proposed DHS Biometric Database
EPIC has submitted an urgent Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of Homeland Security seeking the Privacy Impact Assessment for the "Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology," a proposed system that will integrate biometric identifiers across the federal government. HART would replace IDENT, which now contains biometric records on over 220 million unique individuals. In 2015 a breach at the Office of Personnel Management compromised 22 m records, including 5 m digitized fingerprints. It appears that Homeland Security failed to complete the Privacy Assessment prior to launching HART. By law, a federal agency is required to conduct a Privacy Impact Assessment before procuring information technology that stores personally identifiable information. In EPIC v. Presidential Election Commission, EPIC challenged the failure of the Commission to undertake a Privacy Impact Assessment prior to the collection of state voter data. The Commission was shuttered earlier this year.
June 18, 2018| Share:
