Notice2025-07723
Agency Information Collection Activities: DHS OBIM Biometric Technology Assessments, OMB Control No. 1601-NEW
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
May 5, 2025
Issuing agencies
Homeland Security Department
Abstract
The Department of Homeland Security will submit the following Information Collection Request (ICR) to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and clearance in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. DHS previously published this information collection request (ICR) in the Federal Register on Thursday, July 25, 2024 for a 60-day public comment period. One comment were received by DHS. The purpose of this notice is to allow additional 30-days for public comments.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 90 Issue 85 (Monday, May 5, 2025)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 90, Number 85 (Monday, May 5, 2025)]
[Notices]
[Pages 18989-18991]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2025-07723]
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DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Agency Information Collection Activities: DHS OBIM Biometric
Technology Assessments, OMB Control No. 1601-NEW
AGENCY: Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
ACTION: 30-Day notice and request for comments.
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SUMMARY: The Department of Homeland Security will submit the following
Information Collection Request (ICR) to the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) for review and clearance in accordance with the Paperwork
Reduction Act of 1995.
DHS previously published this information collection request (ICR)
in the Federal Register on Thursday, July 25, 2024 for a 60-day public
comment period. One comment were received by DHS. The purpose of this
notice is to allow additional 30-days for public comments.
DATES: Comments are encouraged and will be accepted until June 4, 2025.
This process is conducted in accordance with 5 CFR 1320.10.
ADDRESSES: Written comments and recommendations for the proposed
information collection should be sent within 30 days of publication of
this notice to <a href="http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain">www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain</a>. Find this particular
information collection by selecting ``Currently under 30-day Review--
Open for Public Comments'' or by using the search function.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS)
Office of Biometric Identity Management (OBIM) provides biometric
compare, store, share, and analyze services to DHS and mission
partners. In order to serve its mission partners, OBIM is focused on
delivering accurate, timely, and high assurance biometric identity
information and analysis. To achieve OBIM's overall goals and
priorities, OBIM continually works to improve biometric services by
keeping up with advancing biometrics in terms of new modalities,
capabilities, and safeguarding information. OBIM is constantly
investigating new developments to keep up with the speed of relevance
and to support DHS operational missions through the development of
standards for interagency implementation of biometrics.
Because OBIM is congressionally mandated to manage the operation of
the department's primary biometric repository and identification system
that is used to identify and verify individuals crossing U.S. borders,
it is mandatory for homeland security that the types of biometrics
used, the technologies that capture them, and the way that OBIM
safeguards them are advancing at a pace that keeps in front of bad
actors.
In the continuing appropriations act of 2013, OBIM was created from
the former US-VISIT program to administer the DHS biometric database,
as authorized by section 7208 of the Intelligence Reform And Terrorism
Prevention Act of 2004 (8 U.S.C. 1365b). See Consolidated And Further
Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013, Public Law 113-6, 127 stat. 198
(2013). The Senate Explanatory Statement for the appropriation explains
that ``OBIM is the lead entity within DHS responsible for biometric
identity management services through its management of the Automated
Biometric Identification System, or IDENT. OBIM assumes the most
significant and cross-cutting responsibility from what was known as US-
VISIT--namely to serve customers across DHS, at other Federal agencies,
in State and local law enforcement, and overseas through storage of
biometric identities, recurrent matching against derogatory
information, and other
[[Page 18990]]
biometric expertise and services.'' The Consolidated Appropriations Act
of 2017, Public Law 115-31, Division F, Section 301, 131 stat. 135, 418
(2017), mandated DHS to implement a facial recognition matching
capability for IDENT, including the ability to search, store and match,
that is independent of other biometric modalities but scalable for
future needs. The 2017 Appropriations Act also called for DHS to
``demonstrate new agile projects focused on the ability to fuse
biographic intelligence information with biometric data.''
Thus, OBIM is constantly working through research and development
efforts and standards development to improve biometric use, capture,
and storage through investigation of the latest industry or academic
advancements and how research findings can help improve performance of
systems and policies that surround the use of the system. While
continuing to improve its biometric services, OBIM has identified a
need to understand the performance of new sensors and data emerging
from these sensors. This understanding is crucial for advancing
standards development and threshold guidance, as continuously evolving
technologies impact the performance of the operational biometric
matchers leveraged by the OBIM biometric repository. OBIM engages with
performers, like John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
(JHU APL), National Institute of Standards Technology (NIST), and DHS
Science And Technology (S&T) to collaborate and leverage the subject
matter expertise available at each entity on biometric sensor
evaluation to assess the performance of emerging biometric
technologies.
OBIM seeks an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) number to
address the Paperwork Reduction Act requirements for OBIM's studies of
emerging biometric technology. These OBIM studies support relevant
biometrics collection projects so that OBIM can collaborate with
performers to take on various biometric collection projects that will
help to understand biometric collection device performance in various
operational settings. These performers include academic and other
research centers to design and execute studies that involve collection
of different biometrics depending on the need and/or research question.
Since OBIM operates and maintains the DHS biometric repository
responsible for storing, sharing, and matching of different types of
biometrics modalities (i.e., face, finger, iris, and future biometrics)
it is imperative that OBIM understand biometric collection device
performance so that we are better able to do the sharing and comparing
portion of our homeland security mission. Because authentication/
identification accuracy depends on the reliability of the equipment
used to capture data, OBIM is developing guidance on biometric capture
quality, to enable the implementation of new capabilities that enhance
national security and general public safety.
OBIM has tasked the performers to help in this effort based on
their extensive experience with biometric image collection and analysis
developed from previous studies. The performers anticipate conducting
several small-scale human research studies to support OBIM program
goals. OBIM is interested in gathering more information in the
following biometric modalities: face, fingerprint, palm print, iris,
and voice. The purpose of this analysis is (1) to evaluate the current
state of the art in biometrics and biometric capture, and (2) to
provide insights on likely future developments in biometrics and
identity intelligence technologies for OBIM to continue advancing
research and development efforts, interoperability standards, and
threshold guidance. The goal is to aid in the elaboration of a multi-
year strategy for both research and development for future
technologies.
As OBIM is not an academic institution and does not engage in
research studies; OBIM relies on academic and other research centers to
design and execute studies that involve collection of different
biometrics (depending on the need and/or research question). These
performers develop research questions and protocols to solve questions
and provide information and guidance for OBIM to better influence
capture, share, match, and storage of biometrics.
OBIM aims to continue to improve biometric services within DHS and
the necessary guidance associated with the implementation of these
biometrics. The primary objective of the studies and use of information
technology is to compare the performance of biometric sensors.
Specifically, understanding the parameters that impact the quality of
biometric image collection, which in turn, impacts the performance of
downstream comparison algorithms.
OBIM will assess new sensors, as the technologies are continuously
evolving, and the inherent impact on the performance with the
operational biometric matchers leveraged by the OBIM biometric
repository. To perform these assessments, biometric collections will
occur using emerging commercial off the shelf sensors (e.g., finger,
face, iris, scanner, using a platen, clamshell, mobile application,
etc.). The assessment and potential future implementation of advancing
biometric sensors aims to improve the biometric collection experience
for the customer and the agent to ensure quality biometrics are
collected in an easy to use and time efficient manner to reduce burden
on the customer and agent involved in the collection while still
providing quality biometric images to allow for accurate comparison for
mission decision support.
Advancing technology will look to reduce burden by:
<bullet> Contactless modes of collection, reducing hygienic burden
to individuals as a result of the current practices of touching the
same surface.
<bullet> Simultaneous collection of multiple biometrics, reducing
the burden to the customer and agent by eliminating multiple devices
and thus decreasing the time for each additional biometric to be
collected.
<bullet> Mobile collection sensors, reducing time burden of
customer by eliminating the need to travel from site of encounter to a
collection site.
If any small businesses will be involved in the collections, study,
or testing that are conducted surrounding biometric devices or matching
performances, OBIM will work to ensure that guidance is streamlined and
clear for all participants and all the time limits put forth for
collection and testing are limited. No requests of performers, vendors,
or participants will be made that will be prohibitive to the
participation of small businesses.
OBIM provides accurate, timely, and high assurance biometric
identity services. As technology continues to advance at a rapid speed,
new biometric collection devices and techniques continue to emerge.
Variations in the technology leveraged in these new devices/sensors may
impact the interoperability with the existing operational biometric
comparison algorithms leveraged by DHS OBIM. Assessments of these
technologies do not account for the impact on the legacy biometric
information within the OBIM biometric repository and provides skewed
performance results on emerging technology. Less frequent collections
will impact the ability to identify issues related to the performance
of the operational comparison algorithms with emerging biometric
collection technologies. This will hinder advancements of research and
development, drafting updates to interoperability standards, and inform
comparison algorithm threshold guidance to optimize biometric
[[Page 18991]]
comparison results for mission decision points.
There are no confidentiality assurances associated with this
collection. However, coverage for the collection of this information is
provided under DHS/ALL-041 External Biometric Records (EBR) System of
Records, April 24, 2018, 83 FR 17829; DHS/NPPD/US-VISIT-0004--IDENT
SORN, 72 FR 31080 (Jun. 5, 2007); DHS/ALL-043 Enterprise Biometric
Administrative Records (EBAR) System of Records, March 16, 2020, 85 FR
14955.
The Office of Management and Budget is particularly interested in
comments which:
1. Evaluate whether the proposed collection of information is
necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the agency,
including whether the information will have practical utility;
2. Evaluate the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of
the proposed collection of information, including the validity of the
methodology and assumptions used;
3. Enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to
be collected; and
4. Minimize the burden of the collection of information on those
who are to respond, including through the use of appropriate automated,
electronic, mechanical, or other technological collection techniques or
other forms of information technology, e.g., permitting electronic
submissions of responses.
Analysis
Agency: Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Title: DHS OBIM Biometric Technology Assessments.
OMB Number: 1601-NEW.
Frequency: Annually.
Affected Public: Direct Service Providers, Educational
Institutions, etc.
Number of Respondents: 1,000.
Estimated Time per Respondent: 1.5 hours.
Total Burden Hours: 1,500 hours.
Robert Dorr,
Executive Director, Business Management Directorate.
[FR Doc. 2025-07723 Filed 5-2-25; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 9112-FL-P
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