Unfortunately we live in an unsafe world, where there are fanatics that are dedicated to violently killing themselves and those around them. They are often well resourced, have good planning and intelligence and significant patience. To think that biometrics will prevent these people and those BEHIND them from perpetrating more crimes is largely wishful thinking.

It will make the process slightly more difficult, as the creation of fake identities is harder. But the recruiting pool is sadly deep and the intelligence services cannot know or keep a track of everyone that poses a RISK. Where biometrics can help is in quickly identifying INDIVIDUALS after an EVENT (which can prevent further attacks) or identifying suspicious behaviour and TRACKING this. The next set of Al-Qaida operatives will probably have quite legitimate biometrics stored in government databases under their own names.

Unfortunately we live in an unsafe world, where there are fanatics that are dedicated to violently killing themselves and those around them. They are often well resourced, have good planning and intelligence and significant patience. To think that biometrics will prevent these people and those behind them from perpetrating more crimes is largely wishful thinking.

It will make the process slightly more difficult, as the creation of fake identities is harder. But the recruiting pool is sadly deep and the intelligence services cannot know or keep a track of everyone that poses a risk. Where biometrics can help is in quickly identifying individuals after an event (which can prevent further attacks) or identifying suspicious behaviour and tracking this. The next set of Al-Qaida operatives will probably have quite legitimate biometrics stored in government databases under their own names.