The Disturbing Info Found On A Military Device Sold On eBay – SlashGear

During the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, insurgency was a major problem for U.S. forces (per The New York Times). Part of the job involved training the Iraqi and Afghan military and police forces so they could continue to do the coalition’s job when western forces eventually pulled out of the country. These training problems also offered insurgents an opportunity to get close to American troops, with a loaded weapon, in an environment where the U.S. soldiers guard may be down. This resulted in several incidents where a trainee officer or soldier, who was actually an insurgent, opened fire on the troops that were training them. Biometric data offered a way to try and counteract this.

A study from Privacy International outlines how the data was gathered and used. Suspected terrorists, detainees, and people who were found in the area of a terrorist attack would have their biometrics taken and stored in a database. Iraqis and Afghans who were working with the U.S. would also have their data collected, and the database could be used to stop any suspected insurgents getting into sensitive positions. 

The collection efforts also turned out to be quite wide ranging, with people randomly stopped at checkpoints also being added to the database. Privacy International came to a fairly scathing conclusion about the program, saying “The DOD’s biometric program was developed and implemented without prior assessment of its human rights impact and without the safeguards necessary to prevent its abuse,” while adding “Its application, while on paper justified for counter-terrorism purpose, led to indiscriminate collection and storage of biometric data of millions of people in Iraq and Afghanistan, the vast majority of whom would pose not [a] security threat.”