I am and will be here for the next few days. I have been a regular with this crowd since getting involved in biometrics in 1999 through RAND's project with the Army (see my "articles"). I stopped coming for a couple of years b/c of my class schedule in graduate school. ...I am a bit disappointed (I think) at how little progress has been made in testing, standards, and implementation since I last checked in with this conference sometime just before or after the 9/11 tragedy, especially considering how many times the words "the Global War on Terrorism" have been bandied about in some chest puffing exercises of those working exclusively in the area of biometrics.
Perhaps everybody working on the problem of biometrics and the airport/Port of Entry problem would be doing most of us a favor by focusing on the entire problem instead of the technology. Are passcodes for travelers that are not linked to any other information once issued really an inferior solution to one with biometrics (and have less privacy implications if implemented correctly)? You'll feel less like James Bond (or a Bond girl) going through the airport, but it's a less expensive and perhaps better solution than biometrics can ever hope to be at identifying safe travelers. ...This topic (biometrics v. passcodes) deserves a lot more attention than I am giving it only here.