"U.S. Lawmakers want more progress on high-tech airport IDs"

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Lawmakers want more progress on high-tech airport IDs
By Leslie Miller
The Associated Press


WASHINGTON — The government must move faster to develop high-tech ID
cards that could prevent armed terrorists from boarding a plane by
posing as airport workers or law officers, lawmakers said Wednesday. 

The Transportation Security Administration still is experimenting with
biometric identification systems, which match people's unique physical
characteristics to confirm who they are. However, the ID cards already
are common in nuclear plants, hospitals and businesses. 

House Aviation Subcommittee Chairman John Mica said the agency needs to
hasten the pace because terrorists are interested in gaining access to
restricted airport areas. 

"It has been 2½ years since 9/11," Mica said during a Wednesday hearing.
"We need to address this issue without delay." 

Mica said congressional investigators created fake law enforcement IDs
from software they downloaded from the Internet four years ago.
Undercover agents were 100% successful penetrating federal buildings and
two commercial airports using the phony IDs. 

A copy of the report on the penetration test was found later in an
al-Qaeda cave in Afghanistan, Mica said. 

He said the TSA recently reported several suspicious people who may have
been conducting surveillance of airports, including a door allowing
access to aircraft. 

Stewart Verdery, assistant secretary for homeland security, told the
committee that the agency is working on a project to develop a biometric
identification card for 2 million transportation workers at airports,
seaports and rail yards. TSA just began the seven-month process of
evaluating how to collect biometric data, verify identities and conduct
background checks, he said. 

Verdery cautioned that implementing a biometric identification program
is a "potentially time-consuming, complex and expensive process." 

TSA also just announced it will start testing video surveillance and
other technology to identify airport employees by fingerprints or eye
scan matches on a special biometric ID card at eight airports. Verdery
said the project's first phase will cost $8 million. 

But another witness said that $8 million could pay to quickly outfit 45
of the biggest U.S. airports with biometric identification systems. 

The witness, Martin Huddart, chairman of the board of the International
Biometric Industry Association, said the TSA's long delay is
unnecessary. 

"Restaurant workers at McDonald's are punching in to work using
biometrics," Huddart said. 

Huddart said San Francisco International Airport already employs hand
geometry, which uses the shape of a hand to identify the user. More than
a dozen others are testing it. Fingerprint controls are used at Little
Rock National Airport and Chicago O'Hare International Airport, and John
F. Kennedy Airport in New York uses iris-recognition technology in its
international arrivals terminal, he said. 

Biometrics is the science of identifying, recording and matching unique
physical characteristics to individuals. There are five basic kinds:
facial recognition, fingerprint, hand geometry, iris recognition and
voice recognition. 

Verdery said hand geometry doesn't do any good in relation to the
government's terrorist watch list, which is based on fingerprints.


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