On Nov. 13, the Potomac Officers Club’s highly-anticipated 2024 Homeland Security Summit will gather public and private sector thought leaders to tackle the most pressing challenges and top priorities homeland security agencies are facing today.
The event boasts a lineup of distinguished speakers who will share their homeland security expertise in keynote speeches, panel discussions and networking sessions. Keep reading to get to know Lisa MacDonald, a biometrics leader within the Department of Homeland Security and one of several keynote speakers at the summit.
Who Is Lisa MacDonald?
Lisa MacDonald serves as director of the Identity Capabilities Management Division within DHS’ Office of Biometric Identity Management, or OBIM. In her position, she is responsible for the office’s strategy, privacy, policy and external affairs as well as acquisition and related activities.
MacDonald has extensive experience in both public and private sector roles. Before assuming her current position, she was ICMD’s capability and policy coordination branch chief, and before then, she served in various leadership positions within the Department of the Army’s Biometrics Identity Management Agency. Earlier, she held positions within the management consulting companies in the government contracting industry.
OBIM’s Priorities
OBIM’s mission is to provide biometric match, store, share and analyze services to DHS and its partners, which include the Departments of State, Justice and Defense; the Intelligence Community; and state, local, tribal and territorial entities as well as international collaborators.
The office was established in 2013 with a vision to leverage biometric identity “for a safer world, enhanced individual privacy and improved quality of life.” It offers fingerprint, iris, face and latent fingerprint matching capabilities to its partners, leads the integration of emerging technologies into biometric identification methods and carries out identity matching for travelers, workers, detainees and those applying for government benefits.
In a document reflecting on its first decade, OBIM identified three major objectives to focus on moving forward: exploring promising identity capabilities, modernizing systems and enhancing interoperability between DHS and its partners.
DHS’ Pursuit of Biometrics
Multiple DHS agencies are embracing biometrics, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection is one agency that has made strides in the field in recent years. The organization has already integrated facial biometrics into entry processes at every international airport and into exit processes at 55 airports. According to its website, CBP has applied biometric facial comparison technology to the processing of over 540 million travelers and halted 2,000 wrongful entry attempts.
During the 2023 edition of the Homeland Security Summit, Jody Hardin, executive director for planning, program analysis and evaluation for CBP, said the agency’s biometric entry-exit mission was a “catalyst” for the agency to overhaul its existing technology infrastructure to better meet today’s biometric processing demands.
The Transportation Security Administration is also working to transform the way it approaches biometrics. In February 2018, the agency set a direction for its use of biometrics with the TSA Biometrics Strategy, which includes four main objectives:
- Partner with CBP on biometrics for international travelers
- Operationalize biometrics for TSA PreCheck travelers
- Expand biometrics to additional domestic travelers
- Develop supporting infrastructure for biometric solutions
TSA built on this plan with the February 2022 release of its Identity Management Roadmap, which focuses on four main goals. The third — “continue to evolve the vetting capability in response to new threats, policies and technologies” — includes modernizing the use of biometrics as one of its objectives.
Learn even more about DHS biometrics efforts directly from MacDonald at the 2024 Homeland Security Summit. Don’t wait to secure your spot, visit the Potomac Officers Club website to register today!
