The Department of the Navy (DON) E-Business Operations Office is an ebusiness innovation center, disseminating ideas and providing consulting services about relevant applications of commercial ebusiness solutions to the Navy and Marine Corps. It is located in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.

fB
Gary, just as a backgrounder can you describe the general role of the Department of the Navy (DON) E-Business operations office?

DON
Certainly. The office is a department of the Navy level office that was stood up back on Sept. 2l, 2000, and our mission is twofold.

Number one, it was to be a centralized operational point for all department of the Navy card programs and that would be such cards as the credit cards that individual government employees use when they travel. We also have what we call the Government Purchase Card that is used for office supplies and so forth, and the other main card is of course the common access card. So that is one side of our mission, to manage the card programs.

The other side is more of an E- business umbrella to serve as a catalyst for trying to promote the cause of E-business within the Department of the Navy. Under that facilitation and innovation type hat we have a budget of seed money to perform pilot or prototype activities throughout the Navy. So a Navy or Marine Corps command without a whole lot of money but with a good idea can come into us a via a structured evaluation process and say "Hey, wouldn't it be nice if we could do such and such" and we would evaluate that, determine if it had merit that would go outside of that local command and maybe it could be used Navy-wide or even Department of Defense-wide. If it looks like a possible candidate we would apply that seed money, perform the pilot, and then evaluate the results.

fB
At the recent CTST Conference in Florida, I was introduced to two of these pilot projects involving the Common Access Card and Contactless Technology integrated with biometrics. Can you elaborate a little bit on those pilots?

DON
We ran two pilots; the first one began August '02 and ran through to October '02, it ran approximately two months. That was conducted at The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, Norfolk, Va., (SPAWAR Systems Center). That was our first pilot and what that involved; we simply put biometric readers on three computer rooms, there were two doors each, a total of 6 doors involved and the enrolled population was about 300 employees. At that point the Common Access Card did not, and as a matter of fact still does not have a contactless chip on it. The purpose of that pilot was to demo or prototype possible technologies that could be on the next generation common access card that is being evaluated right now. So what we did with that particular pilot was we got a manufacturer to produce some cards for us that contained two contactless chips. The legacy type chip if you will was the HID Prox chip that would operate all the other doors in the building, and then for these 6 computer room doors we had a separate MIFARE chip - as you are probably aware that is the l4-443A technology and on that chip we placed a fingerprint biometric template. The storage of a fingerprint on the card I should emphasize, was just a template of the fingerprint, stored on the card. The employee comes up to the door, they present their card to the reader, they hover it or wand it at the reader from a distance of an inch or so, and what the reader does is pick up that fingerprint template from the chip. Then the individual will be prompted to present their live fingerprint to the other part of the reader - the fingerprint sensor - the individual presents their fingerprint and the reader then does the match to determine whether the card that was presented and the individual standing there are indeed one and the same. Then, assuming the match occurs, the reader sends a signal to the back end system saying "okay, so-and- so is standing at the door - is he one of the folks authorized to use this door - yes or no?" If the answer is "Yes" then the door fires and then the employee can enter.

fB
What was involved with the other pilot?

DON
We conducted that more recently. That was in April - June '03 time frame. That was out at United States Pacific Command, Camp Smith, Hawaii. That was very similar to the previous pilot at Norfolk. There were a couple of enhancements that we added. Firstly, there were more doors involved, approximately l2-15 doors - so it was a step up in terms of the number of doors involved and the number of people enrolled was also higher at around 400. The technical difference in this pilot, too, was that we used more than one reader. On two of the outside doors we used a hand geometry reader, then the remaining doors were interior doors and they were similar ones to the ones I just described for the Norfolk pilot. The scenario was the same, you would approach the reader, present your card, it would read the biometric from your card, and then you would present your live template, be that a fingerprint or be that hand geometry. The match would be performed in the reader, the back-end system then would be consulted whether or not you are authorized for that door, and then the door would operate or not.

fB
Once these tests are completed, these pilot projects, what are the next steps involved, Gary?

DON
We have a structured process whereby once a pilot is completed we will write a document, basically a final report, referred to as our Opportunity Analysis. This report that describes what the existing situation was, what the suggested pilot fix was, and what was implemented and what the results were. It is pretty heavily into metrics; it tries insofar as possible to identify return on investment - dollar cost and so-forth. That final report has been completed for the first pilot at Norfolk and it is on our web site. The second one, we are in the final stages of getting that written and expect that out probably mid-September.

fB
Would that be posted on your web site also?

DON
That's correct.

fB
How does what you are doing tie into the tests that, for example, the Department of Defense's Defense Manpower Data Center are undertaking?

DON
We have co-ordinated all this with the DOD Biometrics Management Office. The results we are getting we are feeding them directly to the Biometrics Management Office and they are taking them under their technical reviews to see what the lessons are learned from what we have done.

fB
What are some of the challenges that are specific to, for example, Navy Biometric implementations versus other implementations?

DON
There is some concern, as you are well aware, on the part of individuals when they give a biometric in any system. So what we do, we make sure we allay the concerns of the employee to let them know and say, "Hey, the template you are giving us is stored in mathematical fashion only. There is no way anyone could ever retrieve it, regenerate your fingerprint image - use it for any bad purposes". We emphasize too that the template is stored only on the token on that card that they themselves carry. It is not resident on any back-end system, it is not part of the database anywhere, those are the protections that we undertake to protect the employees and allay their fears. That is probably one of the bigger concerns. Also, folks have limited basic knowledge of what a biometric is. So that is one of the challenges to make sure that they know how biometrics is going to be used, what is used for, how it will further the cause of the Navy.

fB
Like with a lot of new technology I think that is understandable. I think that until more units are out there in the field - you see it probably only in Hollywood movies, etc., - but it is starting to become a bit more mainstream and it is used in time and attendance and all sorts of other applications. As that happens I think the comfort level will really rise, but your point about the fact that it is on the card is a wonderful one because I think that would allay a lot of concerns with regard to that.

DON
That goes along with what our basic mission is. With e-business, the intent is we want to generate good ideas, good productivity for the customers that we have. What we want to do is do things in a cost effective manner to prove concepts that may be exportable to the rest of the Navy.

fB
In summary, where to do you see the biometric industry, if you were to look down the road say 4-5 years, where do you see biometrics then?

DON
I can't really predict where the industry as a whole may be going. Within the Navy, again our mission is to try to support the war fighter. Our next immediate focus will be to make sure the next generation Common Access card passes in the inventory, gets into the hands of the cardholders and gets used for more functions, e.g. mustering, access to dining halls and exchanges, tracking training courses, etc. That is something that will be involving biometrics for access control.

fB
Thank you very much for taking the time to speak with us, Gary. Is there anything else you would like to add in before we finish?

DON
We are a service organization trying to promote things for the war fighter, for the customer in a cost effective manner. This is a pretty dynamic area, this whole convergence of e-business and biometric technology, contactless technology, so we try and pick and choose and demonstrate some of the key transformational technologies that can be used and try to do more with less in the future.

fB
Thanks again, Gary.

DON
You're very welcome Peter.

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