Woodward Speaks on Biometric Technology at Algonquin Club
John D. Woodward, Jr., Professor of the Practice of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, presented on “The Promise and Performance of Biometrics in Combating Terrorism” before members of the Algonquin Club in Boston on May 17, 2017.
Drawing on his experiences as the Director of the U. S. Department of Defense Biometrics Management Office from 2003 to 2005 during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Prof. Woodward explained how the U.S. military, working closely with law enforcement, implemented and effectively used biometric technologies like computerized fingerprinting to identify numerous foreign persons who posed a threat to coalition forces. In addition, Woodward said computerized fingerprinting also enabled the US military to reliably identify recidivists even though they would attempt to use alias names and fraudulent documentation to defeat detection.
Prof. Woodward stressed the importance of ensuring data interoperability by having a system architecture based on technical standards and best practices. In that way, biometric data can be easily shared and searched in many databases (the one to many search) to maximize the probabilities of making a match, according to Woodward. He also noted that the Boston Police Department was the first municipality in the US to submit computerized fingerprints to the FBI in 1998.
Research Center and Prof. John Woodward
Several members of the BU community attended the presentation. Vita Palladino, the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center Director, invited Woodward to speak and arranged his visit. Sean Noel, the Associate Director of the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, introduced Woodward to the audience. Robert Hill, the Dean of Marsh Chapel, Alex Rankin of the Gotlieb Center, and Boston attorney Mark Bodner (BU Law ’85) also attended the talk.
John D. Woodward, Jr. is a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer. During his twenty-year CIA career, John served as an operations officer in the Clandestine Service and as a technical intelligence officer in the Directorate of Science and Technology, with assignments in Washington D.C., East Asia, Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East.