DoD Electronic Biometric Transmission Specification (EBTS)

The ability to transmit biometrics samples is critical for enabling the Department of Defense (DoD) to share and leverage information across the DoD Biometrics Enterprise. The DoD EBTS supports requirements for DoD encounters and detainment circumstances. This standard is intended for those applications requiring the exchange of biometrics samples and related biographic and contextual data both within the DoD Biometrics Enterprise and with external agencies, coalition members and governments.

DoD EBTS v2.0 was published on 27 March 2009. It takes advantage of the ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2007 (American National Standard for Information Systems – Data Format for the Interchange of Fingerprint Facial, & Other Biometric Information – Part 1). It provides increased flexibility to multiple mission sets, including those which utilize repositories other than ABIS. It also leverages BIMA’s Integrated Data Dictionary, which standardizes a broad range of data elements available for implementation in DoD biometrics systems. EBTS Version 2.0 is currently included in the DISR as a ‘Mandated’ standard as of April 3rd, 2010.

DoD EBTS v3.0 was published on 8 Dec 2011. It is based on the ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2011 standard. It was submitted to the Information Assurance Standards Working Group and adopted in the DISR as an 'Emerging' standard for DISR Baseline Cycle 12-1.0. This version of the specification supports the following modalities: Facial/SMT, Fingerprint, Latent Prints, Palmprint, Iris and DNA. In addition, other supporting logical record types (Type-20, 21 and 98) from ITL 1-2011 have also been incorporated, resulting in an enhanced and robust specification.

Along with DoD EBTS v3.0, two authoritative data products, the Baseline Application Profile v1.0 and Integrated Data Dictionary v5.0 are also provided. The Baseline Application Profile v1.0 defines a standard set of transactions (TOTs) and is the first Application Profile for DoD EBTS v3.0. The Integrated Data Dictionary v5.0 defines all the data elements and the characteristics (e.g. field size, character type, valid values, etc) referenced by both DoD EBTS and application profiles.

The DoD EBTS Version 3.0 provides specific guidance on conformance and unique requirements for content of a DoD EBTS file. It also defines the format requirements for traditional encoding. The XML representation of the final DoD EBTS Version 3.0 specification is provided by the DoD EBTS Information Exchange Package (IEP) Version 1.0. DoD EBTS Version 3.0 and DoD EBTS IEP Version 1.0 for XML encoding are directly aligned to each other.

The IEP is a NIEM conformant package which consists of XML Schemas, XML instance documents, Mappings and Package Documentation. The NIEM Subsets and the ANSI/NIST ITL 1-2011 Biometric schemas form the foundation layers of the DoD EBTS XML schema model. The ANSI/NIST ITL 1-2011 Exchange schema is leveraged and provides the root node and the physical structure of the DoD EBTS File in XML encoding. The FBI EBTS 9.3 XML extension schema provides the FBI elements that DoD EBTS references. DoD EBTS 3.0 Type-2 elements defined within the Integrated Data Dictionary Version 5.0 are represented in the DoD EBTS extension schema.

Examples of each of the transactions (TOTs) defined in the Baseline Application Profile Version 1.0 have been provided as XML instance documents. Complete examples of the Type-2 elements required by the Baseline A.P. for CAR, SRE and ERRT are available.

Mappings from the Traditional encoding fields to the XML elements for the DoD EBTS extension schema is provided in the DoD EBTS Mapping document. Mappings for the FBI and ANSI/NIST ITL elements can be found in the FBI EBTS IEP Version 3.0 and ANSI/NIST ITL 1-2011 IEP, respectively.

The Package Documentation includes a master package document that describes the components of the package. In addition, a catalog, metadata and change log are also provided.

The DoD EBTS Version 3.0 main specification should be referenced for specific guidance on conformance and unique requirements for content of a DoD EBTS file.