New
DoD system tracks refugees
Navy deploys RF/ID-based human tracking
system to cope with Haitian/Cuban exodus
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By
Lynne Brakeman, Contributing Editor
in Automatic ID News, Volume 10, No 13, December,
1994, pp. 14-17. Advanstar Communications Inc.
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba:
They
call it the "infamous" Blue Caraibe. It is
a weather-beaten, one-story, wood-frame bungalow huddled
under the vast expanse of the brilliant, cerulean-blue
Caribbean sky. As if for camouflage, its dusty shingles
are painted what was once sky-blue. It has no windows.
The battered blue metal door creaks open - onto a fantastic,
futuristic scene.
Banks
of sophisticated computer workstations are connected
by yards of dangling LAN cables to CCD photo cameras,
fingerprint scanning terminals and remote frequency
identification (RF/ID) transponder readers. Military
personnel in green combat fatigues stride hurriedly
back and forth. The entire 2,000-square-foot interior
of this former base restaurant has been converted into
a state-of-the-art computer processing centre to identify
and track the more than 50,000 Cuban and Haitian refugees
who flooded into this 45-square-mile base between June
and September of this year.
Last
June, the United States Atlantic Command (USACOM), under
the direction of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, implemented
the Deployable Mass Population Identification and Tracking
System (DMPITS).
A
prototype of DMPITS had been designed and tested in
1992 in response to the last great influx of Haitian
refugees. At that time, the Guantanamo naval base (affectionately
referred to as GITMO) served as the processing centre
for 34,000 Haitians requesting asylum in the United
States after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was deposed.
Now,
having performed beyond its designers' greatest expectations,
the DMPITS system has also been purchased by the US
Department of Immigration and Naturalisation Service
(INS) and installed October 1, 1994, in border patrol
stations in the San Diego area. A new era of tracking
illegal aliens and immigrants with automatic identification
technology has begun.
Background
of a historic diaspora
During
the last presidential campaign, Bill Clinton promised
to end the Reagan/Bush policy of involuntarily repatriating
Haitian immigrants who had attempted to gain entry to
the US, but had been rejected by the INS. Under US law,
a prospective immigrant must prove that s/he is fleeing
from political persecution, not just economic hardship.
When President Clinton announced last May that all Haitians
picked up on the high seas would be granted an interview
for refugee status with the INS, thousands of Haitians
set out for the US on anything that would float.
In
August, thousands of Cubans joined the Haitians in their
desperate flight, spurred by Fidel Castro's announcement
that he would no longer prevent them from leaving. Unlike
the Haitians, most Cubans had heretofore enjoyed instant
refugee status upon arriving on US soil. However, the
irrepressible flood of people launching pitiful rafts
during hurricane season forced the Clinton administration
to rescind that policy. The Cubans were sent to join
the Haitians in refugee camps on Guantanamo. New immigration
policies required that applications for entry into the
US must be made from the country of origin. By the end
of September, the historic diaspora began to wind down,
leaving more than 50,000 refugees interred on Guantanamo.
Scrambling
Mike
Humphrey, Chief of Applications Programming for USACOM
worked with the various civilian government agencies
during the 1991-92 operation. "We saw a need to
improve the integrity and tracking of the individuals
being processed for asylum in the United States,"
he said. In 1991-92 refugees were identified with the
Army's standard, colour-coded, prisoner-of-war bracelet
- a plastic band in which a printed label is inserted.
Because only 8-10% of those refugees received approval
to enter the US, some refugees began defacing or removing
their ID bands, giving false names and claiming that
they too were among those granted refugee status. The
situation was chaotic.
"We
were also concerned that the Army bracelets weren't
really appropriate for a humanitarian operation",
said Humphrey. "We were worried about personal
privacy and access control to the database for lawyers
and humanitarian agencies who had come to talk to the
refugees".
In
early 1992, Humphrey approached Identix, a manufacturer
of fingerprint identification systems. Gordon Dechman,
then an engineer at Identix, assisted Humphrey in designing
a proposal he could take to the Joint Chiefs of Staff
for a $70,000 prototype system based on fingerprint
identification and RF/ID transponder technology hooked
up to laptop computers. Dechman, now head of his own
company, FingerPrint USA had created a similar application
with Cogent Systems, a small software development company
located in Alhambra, CA. Shortly after President Clinton
took office, USACOM placed its first order for a complete
DMPITS system. "That was the most comfortable contract
that's ever been let for DMPITS", said Dechman
with a laugh. "We received the order on January
7, 1993. We delivered on February 1993. So we had not
quite, but almost 30 whole days".
Last
May, President Clinton announced the imminent implementation
of the new policy on Haitian immigration. USACOM began
scrambling. Asylum seekers would be processed on the
navy hospital ship, the USNS Comfort, anchored in the
harbour at Kingston, Jamaica. On June 6 Major Roger
Paschall, US Army, took command of the newly installed
DMPITS system on the Comfort. He was to supervise the
deployment of the new system under the deployment of
the new system under true crisis circumstances. The
first Haitians arrived 16 June. By the end of July,
so many refugees were being picked up by the Coast Guard,
the whole DMPITS operation was transferred to GITMO.
Within three weeks, Paschall's unit had processed 18,000
Haitians.
At
its peak, the 81-person DMPITS unit was processing 400
to 500 people an hour, 24 hours a day. A total of 22,000
Creole-speaking Cubans passed through the system. By
mid-October, the numbers interned at GITMO had shrunk
to 11,695 Haitians and 26,471 Cubans. Many Haitians
had been voluntarily repatriated after President Aristide's
restoration to power. Approximately 8,000 Cubans had
volunteered to be moved to more comfortable refugee
camps in Panama. (Another complete DMPITS system was
ordered for the Panama operation). The transfer of so
much humanity taxed the capabilities of the DMPITS unit
to the max.
Dechman
received emergency orders for three more complete systems
for the Navy and two complete systems for INS within
three months. A Navy source confirmed that each complete
basic system cost approximately $1 million. Some of
the systems had to be delivered within as little as
10 days. One of the things we specialise in is fire
drills", Dechman said with a laugh. "And we've
actually gotten pretty good at it".
How
it works
A
new enrollee takes a seat facing a work station with
an imposing array of technology; a Hewlett Packard 715
or 735 UNIX workstation sporting a 2 gigabyte internal
hard drive; a 19-inch colour monitor, keyboard and mouse,
an Identix TV-555 Touchview Fingerprint Scanner, an
AVID ID Tag Scanner; and a Panasonic CCD colour video
camera. The system's service configuration includes
an IIP-735 workstation with SOM of RAM and a 525 GB
external hard drive, a 9.6 kbps analog communications
modem, a flatbed scanner; a Hewlett-Packard LaserJet
IV laser printer with 6M of memory and a V.42 high-speed
modem. The DMPITS software is based on Cogent System's
Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) software,
'sailor-proofed' as Humphrey put it to present a very
user-friendly front end.
Military
personnel place a black plastic wristband on the person's
right wrist. The wristband contains a read-only AVID
RF transponder containing a nine-digit identification
number. It is secured using an aluminium metal pop riveter.
Small children have the wristband attached to an ankle.
Infants are identified with a wristband placed on their
mother's left arm.
Since
the pop riveter resembles a large metal drill, Paschall
was concerned that it would frighten some refugees,
especially children. After some dress rehearsals with
marines, it was decided that the crew would wear civilian
clothing, and the job of fastening on the wristbands
would go to women soldiers. However, it soon became
clear that the problem was not as big as expected. Said
Paschall, "Once the first individual did not scream
in agony, it tended to be much easier after that".
The
enrollee places the right index finger on the glowing
red surface of the Touchprint scanner. A reproduction
of the fingerprint appears in a window on the DMPITS
enrolment screen. The system searches the entire database
to see if that fingerprint has already been recorded.
If not, the left index finger is scanned. The individual's
picture is recorded by the Panasonic CCD camera and
also appears on the screen. The name is key-entered
into the proper field. Finally, the processor interrogates
the individual's wristband with the RF/ID reader, recording
the unique identification number. With the aid of interpreters,
some demographic information is obtained: name, sex,
date of birth, age, place of birth, nationality, names
of family relations, point of origin, whether the individual
is the head of a family, any perceivable handicaps and
whether the individual is an unaccompanied minor. Finally,
the individual's camp number, tent number and cot number
are recorded.
The
individual then proceeds to another bank of PCs that
are connected to a totally separate Novell LAN. The
RF/ID bracelet is read, automatically entering the individual's
DMPITS identification number into a new record. The
individual is then interviewed in greater depth by bilingual
personnel for a wide range of demographic information
required by the INS, including; medical information,
mental assessment, immunisation information, HIV infection
status, whether or not INS has previously processed
the individual, etc. If the individual has a prospective
sponsor in the US, complete contact information is also
required. Other fields record the individual's progress
through the INS application process.
Humphrey
said DMPITS had been designed as two distinct systems
to protect the sensitive demographic information collected
from the refugee. "We control access at the data
element level, so that information is provided on a
"need-to-know" basis," he said. "We
try to ensure the privacy of the individual, even though
they're not American citizens".
This
demographic database is accessed by many international
relief organisations like the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organisation
for Migration (IOM) to verify the treatment of the refugees.
These organisations have RF/ID readers and access to
the database at their field stations out in the refugee
camps. In addition, each camp has an Administrative
Tent, where an officer mans a DMPITS workstation equipped
with an RF/ID reader. The camp hospital is also equipped
with DMPITS stations and scanning equipment.
When
refugees are transferred between camps, or transferred
off the base, their ID bracelets are read. The system
updates the camp's population census and creates a manifest
for departing ships and flights. Couriers accompanying
Cubans who have chosen to move to the Panama camp carry
DAT tapes with the DMPITS records of the people on each
flight. Upon arrival, those records are downloaded into
the Panama camp's database and verified.
Lessons
learned
Humphrey
and DMPITS personnel in Guantanamo are unanimous that
the most serious problem from their standpoint, was
connectivity. The system design called for connecting
DMPITS headquarters and the various camp and hospital
stations by radio frequency antennae. Unfortunately,
this was not possible because of the number of ships
coming in and out of the tiny Guantanamo base. "Our
equipment was on the same radio wavelengths as the ships'
radar", said Humphrey. "It was just beating
our signal to death. We couldn't keep a good link. So
we ran fibre optic cable".
Miles
of cable were strung across the base. More than once
cables were pulled down by vehicles or damaged by careless
workers. Humphrey said he would consider using infrared
technology the next time. "It's a direct line-of-sight
shot. You don't have to worry about all the outside
interference, but it's a high-cost solution" he
said.
Personnel on the ground at Guantanamo found fault with
the perceived scarcity of RF/ID readers, the lack of
human-readable ID on the refugees and a lack of ruggedness
of the DMPITS PCs stationed in open-sided tents out
in the camps. The DMPITS stations are only rated for
environments between 400 F to 1000 and 30% to 85% non-condensing
humidity. An Army sergeant manning a DMPITS station
in Haitian Camp #7 suggested the field stations could
be redesigned to emulate the Army's rugged "green
gear" portable computers.
Regarding
the shortage of RF/ID readers, Humphrey said that the
Guantanamo operation has more than 150 readers. "I
don't exactly know what they're doing with all of them",
he said bemusedly. However, without human-readable ID,
it is understandable that RF readers would be in great
demand as the only quick and accurate means of identifying
people.
"You
could type their name into the system and search for
them that way", said Humphrey. "But, frankly,
there are so many Jean-Baptistes, spelling differences
and the complications of a foreign language made the
use of the RF transponder and reader critical to finding
the right Jean-Baptiste" said Humphrey.
Soldiers
on the ground suggested adding human-readable functionality
to the wristband itself. However, Humphrey said the
cost would be prohibitive, raising the price per wristband
from $3.25 to more than $6.
Actually,
DMPITS is designed to also produce a bar-coded photo
ID badge that includes the name and fingerprint of the
wearer. Due to the nature of the crisis, such IDs were
not provided to the refugees. However, the feature was
still put to good use. DMPITS ended up providing ID
badges for the hundreds of civilian employees of government,
international and relief organisations that were sent
to provide services for the operation.
Major
Paschall observed that many of the refugees had managed
to remove the plastic wristband. Some chewed through
them, or cut them off with homemade knives. Although
their records could always be found using the Touchprint
scanner, time and material were wasted replacing lost
wristbands. He suggested reinforcing the plastic wristband
with metal filament.
Still,
there's a lot to crow about
Humphrey
says the original system was scaled for growth to 50,000
records. He credits Cogent Systems with supplying the
upgrades and data compression software to double that
capacity to 100,000 records. "Cogent is constantly
improving the produce", said Humphrey. "We
were doing a throughput of 100 per machine per hour".
Humphrey
said that the issue of language barriers has been completely
surmounted by this system, taking the chaos out of the
management of the large numbers of people in the camps.
"We take a lot of time and care and make sure that
everything is correct when it first goes in the system.
Then the system makes sure from then on that the right
people get in the right line".
Dechman
is brimming with perhaps justifiable pride. He said
this major new system has been deployed internationally
in three different operational sites with a grand total
of less than three months' development work.
Says
Dechman, "It's absolutely a miracle that a thing
of this complexity has worked as well as it has".
RF/ID BRACELET AS MYTH AND SYMBOL
The
trim young man in the army fatigues, combat boots and
sunglasses, looked like an escapee from the movie "The
Right Stuff". He was welcoming me as I descended
from the six-seater charter plane that brought me over
the Caribbean to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base last October.
When he reached out to shake hands, I noticed he wore
a black plastic DMPITS RF identification wristband on
his right arm. "A lot of us are wearing them just
to show the Cubans and the Haitians we're the same",
said Lieutenant Mitchell, a Public Affairs officer.
At
the DMPITS headquarters in the "Blue Caraibe"
almost all the military personnel sported the nondescript
black wristband that might be mistaken at first glance
for a wristwatch. Sometimes they had simply acquired
one while demonstrating the harmlessness of the threatening-looking
aluminium pop riveter. Captain Veronica Luccio, the
new arrived Officer-in-Charge of the DMPITS operation,
said she wore a wristband to raise confidence among
the hundreds of people that pass through her operation
each day.
MP
Joseph Pierre-Louis, a camp guard at Haitian Camp #7,
had a different reason for wearing his wristband. Pierre-Louis,
who immigrated to the US from Haiti as a child in the
1980s had been deployed to Guantanamo to be an interpreter.
However, when he tried to speak with the Haitian refugees,
they regarded him with suspicion. "They told me
that I wasn't their brother because I wasn't wearing
the wristband", said Pierre-Louis. So, he asked
for his own wristband. Now he strolls casually through
the camp, sometimes receiving a friendly high-five and
corralling Haitians so that this reporter could get
their response to the DMPTIS system.
Among
the refugees, reactions were often surprising. Lyonel
and David, two English-speaking brothers from Port-au-Prince,
said they actually liked it. "When they put this
on me, mahn", said Lyonel, "I knew that they
were taking me seriously, and that something was finally
going to happen for me". David agreed. "When
I saw my name and picture in that computer, I knew things
were gonna be fine". David also sees the wristband
as a symbol of the refugee's solidarity in living through
a shared emergency.
Another
man responded that the wristband bothered him because
the stiff plastic tongue had gotten bent up and he was
always catching it on things or scratching himself with
it. A young woman who was languidly washing laundry
in a soapy canvas cot was more apathetic. "We have
to wear it to get medical help at the hospital and I
have an injury. It's OK" she replied.
Two
young women who were receiving training from the Department
of Justice for jobs with the new Haitian security forces
were more outspoken. They thought the wristband was
too machine-like, too impersonal. When asked what they
would have preferred, one reached for the laminated
picture-ID card a Department of Justice employee was
wearing, "This would be better. This is what I
want" she said. "With my picture on it".
The
last man I spoke to responded that he was sincerely
unhappy about wearing the wristband. "In Revelations
133:16, the Bible says that the devil will mark us on
our right hands", said the worried young man. "It
says that we'll be marked with the number 666. It really
bothers me that it's in the Bible".
On
returning to the US, I had a phone interview with Major
Paschall, who had recently returned home for a well-earned
vacation. He was still wearing his wristband. He said
it gave him a sense of kinship with the people he had
worked so hard to help. "I just want to remind
myself of the folks down there" he said quietly.
Lynne Brakeman
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