Port worker ID card criticized as wasteful and ineffective.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: UPFRONT - Identification

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The Transportation Security Administration and Coast Guard in October began enrolling port workers in a long delayed identity card program even though the technology to read the cards may be years away.

Without machines that can read the cards--and the technology backbone that connects them to a database--identity management experts contend that the $90 million program has produced little more than a glorified photo ID.

Six years after Congress mandated the creation of the transportation worker identity credential, longshoremen, truckers, office workers and others requiring unescorted access to port facilities began enrolling in the program Oct. 16 at Wilmington, Del. Other major ports will follow.

The $132 fee the workers must pay allows the Department of Homeland Security to verify that the workers do not appear on terrorist, FBI or immigration watch lists. A photo and 10 fingerprints are digitally scanned with two prints stored on the card.

What port facilities, owners and operators of ships and businesses do with the cards is out of TSA's hands, said Manrine Fanguy, TWIC program director.

"It's really up to them to determine who has access to their facilities," she said at the Biometrics Consortium conference in Baltimore.

The program is providing a credential that will give employers or business owners a basis in which to make the judgment of whether a worker is a security risk, she said.

"It's no longer really a government responsibility," she added.

The intent is to verify a cardholder's identity through biometric measurements and to be able to revoke cards if they are lost, stolen, or if the worker is no longer qualified to enter a facility or ship.

Until the readers are fully developed and networked, none of this will be possible, experts noted.

Fanguy was vague on how TSA will ensure that the 3,200 facilities and 10,000 vessels are actually using the cards. She didn't think there would be on-site checks, but the agencies would require "performance standards they must abide by."

The card is machine readable, but when these machines will appear at the roughly 13,000 sites is unknown. The Coast Guard is working on proposed rules, she said. After technology standards are established, facilities will have to purchase the readers from vendors. Some may already have readers that can scan the cards, she added.

"You actually have to get the cards in the hands of the workers before you can actually turn on all the...