FBI forming vast database of images

CLARKSBURG, W.Va., Dec. 22 (UPI) -- The FBI has begun a $1 billion effort in West Virginia to build the world's largest database of faces, fingerprints, palm patterns and iris scans.

The database aims to give the government unprecedented ability to identify individuals in the United States and elsewhere, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

"Bigger. Faster. Better. That's the bottom line," said Thomas E. Bush III, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division.

The biometric information is being collected in a climate-controlled, secure building in Clarksburg, W.Va., the Post reported. In the coming years, the information could enable authorities to identify people from the iris pattern in their eyes, the shape of their face and even the way they walk and talk, the Post reported.

The U.S. Defense Department already has stored images of fingerprints, irises and faces of more than 1.5 million Iraqi and Afghan detainees, Iraqi citizens and foreigners who enter U.S. military bases, the Post reported.