DHS plans single system to unify biometric data across agencies
Feb 24th 2026
Records reviewed by WIRED show the Department of Homeland Security is asking contractors to build a unified matching engine to search faces, fingerprints, iris scans and other biometrics across CBP, ICE, TSA, USCIS, the Secret Service and DHS headquarters, raising technical and civil liberties concerns.
- DHS wants a single matching engine that can compare faces, fingerprints, iris scans and other identifiers across multiple enforcement components.
- The platform would support both identity verification and investigative searches with adjustable match thresholds depending on context.
- Building the system will require converting or bridging incompatible legacy formats and could face accuracy and performance problems at the scale of potentially billions of records.
- Documents include a placeholder for voiceprint analysis but provide no detailed plan, which is notable given rising concerns about AI voice spoofing.
- DHS has deployed mobile face recognition tools, rolled back previous privacy limits, and has not published clear, department wide rules for field use and oversight.
- Civil liberties groups and some lawmakers warn the consolidated system could expand surveillance beyond checkpoints, prompting proposed legislation to restrict or ban ICE and CBP use of biometric identification