Utilizing current commercial-off-the-shelf facial-recognition and public live video streaming to enhance national security

Abstract

The nation’s security depends in part on proactive approaches and methods to evolving technologies for identifying persons of interest, enemies of state (foreign and domestic), potential acts of terrorism, and foreign intelligence. Currently, state and federal entities operate passive surveillance technologies with biometrics to identify and curtail national security threats, so as to act within the confines of the Act for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. However, such surveillance technologies are implemented independently by state and federal agencies, which cause a significant delay in the identification of persons of interest. Consequently, acts of terrorism on U.S. soil as well as U.S. assets abroad that could have otherwise been prevented may occur. This thesis proposes a generic interoperability technology approach that considers the networking of public live video streaming with state and federal surveillance technologies (including traffic cameras integrated with facial recognition technologies) interlinked with the National Criminal Information Center and Federal Terrorist Screening Database. Requirements surrounding data format and transmission protocols were studied, and concerns regarding existing need to know requirements are addressed. The interoperability, or systems of systems approach, and concept of operation is applied to further the enhancement of and fill a capability gap by providing actionable intelligence in real-time using biometrics technologies.