From Declan McCullagh:
The latest developments, which reveal efforts to “collect, process, or retain information on” members of “the public,” came to light through an internal DHS document obtained under open-government laws by the Electronic Privacy Information Center. DHS calls its “pre-crime” systemFuture Attribute Screening Technology, or FAST.
“If it were deployed against the public, it would be very problematic,” says Ginger McCall, open government counsel at EPIC, a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C.
It’s unclear why the June 2010 DHS document (PDF) specified that information is currently collected or retained on members of “the public” as part of FAST, and a department representative declined to answer questions that CNET posed two days ago.
Elsewhere in the document, FAST program manager Robert Middleton Jr. refers to a “limited” initial trial using DHS employees as test subjects. Middleton says that FAST “sensors will non-intrusively collect video images, audio recordings, and psychophysiological measurements from the employees,” with a subgroup of employees singled out, with their permission, for more rigorous evaluation.
FAST is designed to track and monitor, among other inputs, body movements, voice pitch changes, prosody changes (alterations in the rhythm and intonation of speech), eye movements, body heat changes, and breathing patterns. Occupation and age are also considered. A government source told CNET that blink rate and pupil variation are measured too.
A field test of FAST has been conducted in at least one undisclosed location in the northeast. “It is not an airport, but it is a large venue that is a suitable substitute for an operational setting,” DHS spokesman John Verrico told Nature.com in May.
Although DHS has publicly suggested that FAST could be used at airport checkpoints–the Transportation Security Agency is part of the department, after all–the government appears to have grander ambitions. One internal DHS document (PDF) also obtained by EPIC through the Freedom of Information Act says a mobile version of FAST “could be used at security checkpoints such as border crossings or at large public events such as sporting events or conventions.”
Here is how EPIC describes FAST:
According to documents published by the Department of Homeland Security, FAST is a Minority Report style initiative that seeks to determining the probability that an individual, who is not suspected of any crime, might commit a future criminal act. Under the FAST program, the DHS will collect and retain of a mix of “physiological and behavioral signals” from individuals as they engage in daily activities.
FAST is funded by S&T’s Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency, and is managed by S&T’s Human Factors Behavior Sciences Division. FAST is designed to allow the agency capture biological and behavioral information from subjects. According to a 2008 Privacy Impact Assessment prepared by the agency, the DHS intends to monitor and collect data including “video images, audio recordings, cardiovascular signals, pheromones, electrodermal activity, and respiratory measurements.”