A U.S. military device containing a biometric database recently sold on eBay for $68, plus shipping and handling. According to the New York Times, researchers in Germany bought the Secure Electronic Enrollment Kit, or SEEK II.
Inside the device was a memory card containing the names, nationalities, photographs, fingerprints and iris scans of more than 2600 people. Most of the people identified on the database live or lived in Iraq and Afghanistan. The device was last used in Kandahar in 2012.
Many of the people in the database were known terrorists, but not all. Some of the individuals identified on the database assisted the U.S. military during the War on Terror. Several U.S. service members also had their biometric data stored on the device, likely the result of training.
In total, the German researchers bought six biometric data collection devices online, two Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment devices (HIIDEs) and four SEEK II devices. Two of the SEEK devices contained sensitive information on their memory cards, which are also removable.
The researchers started the project after the Taliban seized similar devices following the chaotic U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The Defense Logistics Agency, which handles the disposal of excess equipment for the Pentagon, said the HIIDE and SEEK devices should never have made it to the open market, much less sold in an online auction.
How exactly the eBay sellers obtained the devices is still unclear, according to the Times. The Department of Defense was alerted to the existence of the database by the German researchers, who said they’d delete the information once their project is complete.
