[xcbf] GAO Technology Accessment - Biometrics

["Phillip H. Griffin" <phil.griffin@asn-1.com>]

You may have seen this, as it is old news from way back in the
November - December time frame.

Well written I think; factual and concise for the most part. Though
it fails to mention our XCBF and WSS work, it does speak rather
favorably to the design flexibility of the 2001 version of the X9.84
standard (where we started for our schema).

But the authors seem confused about the purpose and utility of the
X9.84 standard, and see a difference between transport security
requirements and formats and those for storage of biometric
templates, whereas I do not. They also seem to see a need for
other formats for smart card use (which again, I do not). Perhaps
they speak more to was is and not to what could or should be.

I believe the X9.84 2002 revision offers significant improvements
in flexibility over the 2001 version, mainly by building on our XCBF
efforts, and extending the possible encodings to XML which better
enables web use. But looking at their figures, perhaps the XCBF
work fails in ignoring BAPI and should be extended to also map
MicroSoft biometric records into our schema. I note that when I
helped to start this TC, I was told by several folks involved in the
BioAPI work that BAPI was going away and that MicroSoft
would soon adopt BioAPI. It is not clear that this has happened
from this GAO report.

At any rate, good reading, and the following was found at
http://www.mail-archive.com/daybook@listserv.gao.gov/msg00151.html

5. Technology Assessment:  Using Biometrics for Border Security.
GAO-03-174, November 15.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-174

Phil