ID efforts cited in TSA reform report
21 November, 2011
category: Biometrics, Government
The U.S. House of Representatives released a report calling for reform at the Transportation Security Administration 10-years after it was created.
“The report is an examination and critical analysis of the development, evolution and current status and performance of TSA ten years after its creation,” the report states. “Since its inception, TSA has lost its focus on transportation security. Instead, it has grown into an enormous, inflexible and distracted bureaucracy, more concerned with human resource management and consolidating power, and acting reactively instead of proactively.”
The report specifically calls out some credentialing efforts the agency has undertaken and how they haven’t worked out so well.
The report criticizes that the TSA doesn’t have a trusted traveler program in place that uses biometrics. “TSA has tested numerous pilot programs for trusted travelers, including its current PreCheck program, but has failed to develop an expedited screening program that utilizes biometrics to positively identify participants.”
The TSA was supposed to have created standards for biometric credentials to be used at airports as well. “These standards are necessary for the Federal Aviation Administration to implement a congressionally-directed requirement for biometric pilot licenses.”
Lastly, the Transportation Worker Identification Credential hasn’t been fully deployed either. “The Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC), which has cost over half-a-billion dollars, has been crippled by latent programmatic weaknesses. TSA still has not deployed TWIC card-readers to many of the Nation‘s ports.”