The FBI has invested $1 billion in a biometrics-based identification system to help catch criminals, reports ZD Net.

The Next Generation Identification (NGI) program will improve the FBI’s existing fingerprint ID service. It also plans on including other biometric measures such as facial recognition, iris scanning, DNA analysis, voice identification and potentially also rolled and latent finger and palm prints.

The FBI is running a pilot program, with the goal of having a functional system by 2014. The NGI system will use algorithms to find matches between current databases to help agencies find hits.

While the NGI leverages a lot of existing databases, it has the ability to be used across the country, which will help state-level agencies.

Read more here.