Hi
I have learned that the US-VISIT program has been suspended per an article
in the EPIC newsletter:
House Committee Suspends US-VISIT Contract
======================================================================
The House Appropriations Committee has moved to suspend the Department
of Homeland Security's contract with Accenture, a non-U.S. based
corporation, for development of the United States Visitor and
Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT). The Department last
week awarded the company a contract worth up to $10 billion for the
expansion of the controversial border security program, which uses
photographs and biometrics to track foreign visitors to, from and
within the U.S.
US-VISIT has already processed more than four million people at the
country's busiest air and sea ports, and Department of Homeland
Security officials claim to have apprehended over 500 suspected
criminals and illegal aliens through the program. US-VISIT has yet to
assist in the apprehension of a single suspected or known terrorist.
The bid process for the US-VISIT contract was deemed unusual because
the government left it to bidders to envision an ideal process for
tracking visitors traveling to and from the U.S. Accenture's proposal
entailed the creation of "virtual folders" for each visitor that would
store visa application information, biometric information, entry and
exit dates, and the purpose of the visit. Additional information
would be included for student visa holders. Acknowledging that
US-VISIT enables the unprecedented integration and sharing of
individual information among various agency databases, Accenture also
created a position for a chief privacy officer.
Indeed, privacy threats posed by the program remain paramount. In
February, EPIC urged the Department of Homeland Security to define how
Privacy Act obligations affect the program, to consider the
significance of international privacy standards in the collection and
use of personal information on non-U.S. citizens, and to prohibit the
expansion of US-VISIT uses beyond the program's defined mission.
These issues remain unresolved.
Department of Homeland Security press release on the US-VISIT
contract:
<http://www.epic.org/redirect/dhs_pr.html>http://www.epic.org/redirect/dhs_pr.html
EPIC comments on US-VISIT:
<http://www.epic.org/privacy/us-visit/us-visit_comments.pdf>http://www.epic.org/privacy/us-visit/us-visit_comments.pdf
For more information about US-VISIT, see EPIC's US-VISIT Page:
<http://www.epic.org/privacy/us-visit>http://www.epic.org/privacy/us-visit
====================================================Saundra Kae Rubel
Privacy Law Analyst
Privacy Knowledge Base: the world's most comprehensive privacy and data
protection law database containing extensive information and expert
analysis about privacy and data protection in the United States, and 66
other countries including the European Union member states.
http://www.privacyknowledgebase.com/
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