Fool Me Once, Shame on You...

As reported last month, a South Korean woman fooled a fingerprint scanner at a Japanese airport to gain entry into the country. How did she do it? No need for an elaborate scheme -- instead, she used a special kind of tape purchased from a broker to easily bypass the state-of-the-art biometric system.

The 51-year-old woman used "special tape" to alter her fingerprints to trick the technology, which in November 2007 was installed at 30 airports around the country at a cost of around $45 million dollars. Designed to prevent entry by "international terrorists and other undesirables," reports say it is possible that a large number of South Koreans may have illegally entered the country using similar methods.

While the woman was eventually arrested in South Korea after attempting to purchase a fake passport, this incident raises a red flag about how effective border security really is and if expensive installments are worth the cost. In fact, last month, the DHS announced an update to its biometric technology in the US-VISIT program, which records biographic information to conduct security checks and verify the identities of international visitors to the United States.

However, why spend millions of tax dollars deploying systems that don't perform?

While biometric systems certainly complicate methods traditionally used by criminals to bypass the law, these tools will always exist -- ultimately, what customs and airport security checkpoints need is the deployment of an all-encompassing solution to stop those "special tape" users and repeat offenders in their tracks.

Integrating access control and facial recognition systems are two critical deployments needed to transform border security infrastructure and ensure a comprehensive solution to deter criminal acts. Designed to improve access control, passenger screening and liability protection, our deployments in airports (including Evansville Regional) monitor for criminal suspects and support both passenger and general airport visitor screening procedures with facial recognition technology, which stores profile pictures regardless of angle, shadow or lighting.

What does that mean in terms of catching criminals? We'll let's just say that no amount of "special tape" will get a person past an access control gate that requires an ID varified using facial recognition.

As the age-old proverb goes, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." Multiple levels of security technology ensure the validity of this saying, and are ultimately crucial components of a successful surveillance program in the public places that need it most.