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LONDON - The United States is trying to recruit Britain, Canada and other countries to participate in a security database to share biometric data on terrorists and criminals, a senior U.S. official said Tuesday.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's proposal for the database, called the "Server in the Sky," is still in the concept and design stage, said Tom Bush, assistant director of the FBI's criminal justice information services.
Once active, it would enable countries to quickly search and swap biometric data such as fingerprints, genetic information and iris scans on some of the world's most wanted criminals, he said.
"We've always exchanged information, either in faxes or mail, going back years and years, with our friends. So this would be another way, a secure way, if we do it right," Bush said.
The planned database would hold the details of a few million individuals, he estimated.
"It would be the worst of the worst. You could be looking at a database that's pretty small," he said.
The United States has approached Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand about the project, he said.
"It's just a facilitation of what we already do. It's just making it faster, a more efficient way of actually doing it," he said.
To help ease privacy concerns, the data would likely be encrypted or otherwise protected to ensure it couldn't be improperly shared, Bush said. He said he hopes initial phases of the program could be in place this year but that it likely won't be completed until 2009 at the earliest.
He gave no estimate of the proposed program's cost.
Sgt. Sylvie Tremblay, an RCMP spokeswoman, confirmed that Canada's national police force is working with the FBI on the proposal through the International Information Consortium.
"At this point it's only a concept and no commitment has been made by the RCMP to implement such a system until we're satisfied that the planned concept of operations would not violate current international sharing agreements or privacy laws in Canada," Tremblay said Tuesday.
She added the FBI plans to present its work on the project in May at a conference in the United States.
Britain's National Police Improvement Agency, which has discussed the project with the FBI, said it was too early to say whether Britain would participate in the database.
"There was a discussion last year," a spokesman for the agency said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with agency policy. "That was it. There's no specific discussions on timescales or how it would be delivered. We've got no plans to do anything at this time."
Britain has already agreed to allow access to much of its biometric information to its European allies. Last year EU countries completed a plan to share national police databases containing fingerprints, genetic information and licence plate numbers.
The data-sharing deal, known as the Pruem Treaty, is intended to automate the information-sharing and do away with time-costly data request applications. The system is already online in Germany, Spain, France, Belgium, Finland, Slovenia, the Netherlands, Austria and Luxembourg.
Last year, the German interior minister suggested that the measures could also be extended to the United States as part a worldwide effort to track terror suspects and wanted criminals.