In this card we trust

By BRYON OKADA

The card looks ordinary enough, like a credit card or an employee badge. Frequent fliers, such as those on regular business trips, could use it to bypass many of those queues at airports. But the "trusted-traveller card" does more.

A microchip embedded in the plastic would contain virtually everything there is to know about you - who you are, where you've been, what you've done, how you look. And it could be used to separate trusted passengers from the rest.

The trusted traveller could insert the card into a machine, undergo a fingerprint or iris scan and be cleared quickly, avoiding long queues.

In the United States, federal officials have indicated they would buy into the idea if it helped security queues to move more quickly and bolstered the slumping business-traveller market.

"So far, airport security has been like trying to find a needle in a haystack," said Jeremy Grant, director of strategy and business development for Virginia-based Maximus, which is developing several versions of the "smart" card.

"There's an unknown quantity of people we're trying to find, and we've resorted to random searches. Everyone gets the full rubber-glove treatment."

One early opponent, US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) head John Magaw, said the cards could make it easier to breach airport security if they were obtained by terrorists. But supporters say the card is implied in congressional mandates. The mandates call for the TSA to "establish requirements to implement trusted passenger programmes and use available technologies to expedite the security screening of passengers".

The trusted-traveller card is not among the most pressing post-September 11 priorities for airport security. This year's agenda is full of tight deadlines for hiring federal screeners and law enforcement officers, adding extra space for bomb-detection machines at America's 429 commercial airports and finding the US$6.8 billion ($14.14 billion) to pay for it.

The Air Travellers Association is behind the plan, and several companies, including Electronic Data Systems (EDS) in Texas, are racing to develop the technology.

"We can ramp it up in a matter of months for Category-X airports," said Bret Kidd, vice-president of the EDS global transportation industry group, which also has substantial data operations in New Zealand.

Category-X airports in the US are those where more than 25 million passengers are screened each year. "Obviously, the Transportation Security Administration has a Herculean challenge," Kidd said. "But because we need to get business travellers back in the air, a number of people are in favour of a known-passenger programme. It can enhance security and convenience at the same time."

EDS has been developing technology using biometrics - facial and iris scans, fingerprints and hand geometry - since 1991. The first was a welfare-fraud detection system for two counties in California, and a pilot programme for processing immigrants was set up in the Immigration and Naturalisation Service. In Israel, smart cards allow Palestinian workers to pass through tightly restricted borders.

Perhaps the most promising programme is a card that uses fingerprint biometrics to give US military personnel access to bases. More than one million cards have been distributed and there may be four million total by the end of 2004.

Biometrics are used on a scaled-down basis at immigration checkpoints in some airports. The Transportation Department has indicated that it will soon use biometric identification for employees in all modes of transportation.

So how does it work? Most experts say an application would be submitted voluntarily, along with biometric information, most likely a fingerprint. The application would allow a background check by the FBI, CIA, US Customs Service, INS and Interpol. Criminal records, work histories, education and past addresses would be fair game.

Card-makers estimate a first-time fee of between US$50 and $US150. Renewals might cost less, and they would probably be required every six months to a year.

At an airport, the traveller would stand in a special line and press a finger on a pad. Once positively identified, the passenger would move on. The trusted traveller would go through the same metal detectors and bag inspection as other passengers.

But passengers who have the cards would not have to take off their shoes, stand like scarecrows in the middle of the terminal for hand-screenings or be screened again at jet bridges.

* Armed police are to be posted at check-in counters at American airports in response to the shooting at Los Angeles on July 4 when a gunman killed two people before being shot dead by a security guard.

The added precautions will involve uniformed and plainclothed guards. They will patrol all public areas at airports, including check-in counters.

- NZPA