May 25, 2011 – Daily Athenaeum

Students at West Virginia University took to the streets of Morgantown, burning couches and singing in celebration of Osama bin Laden’s death. On May 2, bin Laden, leader of international terrorist organization al-Qaida, was shot and killed by an elite team of Navy SEALS while he was hiding in Pakistan. Bojan Cukic, a professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at WVU, gave insigh on the biometric technology used to bring down bin Laden. Cukic said SEEK, or Secure Electronic Enrolment Kit, was one crucial tool used by the team of Navy SEALS to ensure they had identified the correct target. “SEEK is a handheld device, which integrates cameras for face and iris recognition and a sensor for fingerprint matching”, Cukic explained. This device can store large amounts of personal data on multiple people. This data, which includes hundreds of photographs, is compared to a possible subject to identify a possible match. Cukic said bin Laden’s fingerprints were not available, so facial recognition was key.

http://www.thedaonline.com/news/biometric-technology-used-in-osama-bin-laden-s-death-1.2250547