Against $150 eBay platform German security researcher Matthias Marx bought an American device capable of collecting fingerprints and scanning the iris. But when Marx received the package to his home in Hamburg, he discovered that the machine’s memory card contained the names, nationalities, photographs, and fingerprints of 2,632 people.

Most of them were Iraqis and Afghans, and many were known terrorists or wanted men. Others, however, were ordinary citizens who worked for US agencies in those two countries or were randomly checked into the block. United States Army. The electronic trace of the device showed that it was last used in the summer of 2012 near Kandahar, Afghanistan.

against terrorism

The car, the remains of it war on terror, it is not known how she ended up on the popular eBay auction. However, the information it contains may help terrorist organizations or hostile regimes identify civilians who have collaborated with the US military.

Biometric data was used by US agents in CIA secret prisons, as well as US military patrols in Iraq and Afghanistan to hunt down suspected bombers targeting US soldiers. These devices began to be seized back in 2011 with the identification of his body. Osama bin Laden done with facial recognition technology, not with a device found in Hamburg.

Marks and members of the hacker group to which he belongs said: “It is impressive that the last users of the device – the US military – did not try to wipe the data. They didn’t care about the danger their partners were in.”

Stuart Baker, a former homeland security official, says biometric scanning has been a valuable tool in war zones, but data must be carefully guarded. “The leak of such information will cause great concern among many of our Afghan partners. This shouldn’t have happened. This is a disaster for those who are exposed. Their lives could be in danger,” Baker says.

A retired US Marine whose biometric data was on the device’s memory card suggested they were there as a result of a demonstration he gave as part of training recruits on the machine. According to the Pentagon agency responsible for decommissioned military equipment, the device should never have appeared on the open market. Any system for recording and storing biometric data must be destroyed at a military facility by authorized military personnel.

The device was sold by a used military goods company in Texas, and its operator claimed to have bought the car at an Army auction of retired military equipment without knowing what it was about.