Registered Traveler Program accomplishes its mission

www.suntimes.com

Mission Accomplished.

Registered Traveler on "pause"

USA TODAY



'Traveler' test has promise, so why stop it now?
For the past year, more than 9,000 "registered travelers" have benefited from a test program that has meant more convenience — and less scanning, searching, wanding and patting-down — at certain airports.

But, no more. After Friday, according to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the program is "on pause."

That's too bad.
$20 MILLION PILOT PROGRAM
Five airports and more than 9,000 travelers participated in TSA's "Registered Traveler" program:
Airport Travelers
Boston's Logan International 1,800
Houston's George Bush Intercontinental 2,000
Los Angeles International 1,200
Minneapolis-St. Paul International 2,300
Reagan Washington National 1,800
Source: Transportation Security Administration

The $20 million program worked like this: Volunteer fliers at five airports provided the government with biographical data, fingerprints and iris scans and submitted to a government background check. Once cleared, they got an expedited security lane and faced fewer personal searches.

The experiment was an all-around win. The volunteers got more convenience. Other fliers got shorter lines. The nation's overburdened security regime got fewer unknown travelers to screen. And if the program could be improved and expanded, it would mean safer skies and less hassle for everyone.

Leave it to the government to slow things to a crawl. The pilot programs "have run their course and now is the time for us to look at the data, analyze and see what we can learn," a TSA spokesman said.

Couldn't that have been done over the past year, or without having to shut down a program after going through all the effort of setting it up?

Whatever the future, this latest pause means yet another delay in the government's four-year quest for a way to separate the millions of fliers who pose no risk from the relatively small number who might.

The larger effort, known as "Secure Flight," has stumbled repeatedly. Four years after 9/11, for example, air passengers are still not checked against a full list of potential terrorists. Last week, an oversight panel said Secure Flight is so riddled with problems that it should not be allowed to go forward without significant changes.

The simple fact is the government cannot hope to do a thorough job of screening the 1.8 million air passengers who come through airports on an average day. Some way must be found to divide those who need extra screening from those who don't.

"Registered Traveler" offered a solution that avoided privacy concerns. One test program at Orlando's airport — the only one run by a private firm — is still alive. About 7,500 fliers have paid $79.95 each to join. Fifty airports have formed a consortium to find a way to provide similar programs around the nation. But they cannot move on this security issue without TSA's blessing.

Certainly, there's room for improvement. Taxpayers were footing the bill for the just-halted pilot program. Perhaps fliers should pay, as they're doing in Orlando, for the convenience. The whole purpose of a yearlong test program was to work out these details. More delay will not make "Registered Traveler" better or the nation's skies more secure.



Find this article at:

Editorial.

Contest develops over control of Registered Traveler

The Wall Street Journal

September 28, 2005

Airport Executives Seek to Control kioks.

OfficialTravelDocuments.com

New Site Launches 'One Stop Shop' for Travel Documents
http://www.OfficialTravelDocuments.com

NASHVILLE, Tenn. and SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Obtaining
travel documents will now be easier than ever for millions of Americans
planning international travel. Two of the leading expediters of travel
documents have combined forces to make ordering passports, visas and birth
certificates as simple as going to the Internet.
VitalChek(R), the leading birth certificate processor, and Zierer Visa
Service (ZVS), the leading passport and visa expediter, today announced the
launch of OfficialTravelDocuments.com(SM).
A recent survey of Americans indicates that international travel,
particularly for leisure, continues to rise. Plus, a record number of nearly
62 million U.S. travelers went abroad last year, up 10 percent from 2003,
according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Interestingly, while the number
of Americans who travel outside U.S. borders is climbing, the number of those
who have passports remains at a low 20 percent.
An estimated 21 million Americans will travel to and from the Caribbean,
Mexico and Bermuda this year. They are not required to have a passport - now.
However, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 requires
all Americans to have a passport by 2008 to reenter the United States from any
other country in the Western Hemisphere. The first two phases of the
initiative include the Caribbean, Bermuda, Mexico, Canada and Central and
South America. This will create an enormous increase in demand for passports.
In fact, as the number of travelers continues to increase and the requirement
for passports becomes a reality, the demand is expected to reach an all time
high.
Together, VitalChek and ZVS support OfficialTravelDocuments.com with more
than 70 years of experience in the travel document industry. Until now, this
industry has been fragmented with the majority of companies being "mom and
pop" travel document expediters. OfficialTravelDocuments.com offers a secure,
direct-to-government service that will provide travelers with passports, visas
and birth certificates in as little as 24 hours after receipt of the documents
from the traveler.
"Our research proves that there is a real need for a robust travel
document Web site with staying power," said Deslie Webb Quinby, VitalChek vice
president. "It is crucial for travelers to feel confident and comfortable that
they will receive their personal documents in a timely manner and through
secure means."
OfficialTravelDocuments.com will be a "one-stop shop" for all travel
document needs including helpful information and step-by-step instructions on
how to obtain travel documents. Orders are tracked online and the site offers
a team of specialists for personalized service. Unlike other sites,
OfficialTravelDocuments.com allows customers to place orders online using a
credit card. Also, it does not outsource to couriers, and its employees are
certified, U.S.-based representatives.

About VitalChek
VitalChek, a ChoicePoint(R) company, is the leading source for the remote
ordering of birth certificates and other vital records. The benchmark of
VitalChek's business operations is its ability to link Americans with the
state, county or city agencies that house their personal vital records -
specifically, certified copies of birth, death, marriage and divorce
certificates. With more than 250 network affiliates nationwide, VitalChek is
the fastest and largest supplier of certified vital records in the country.
VitalChek facilitates the expedited delivery and payment processing of more
than 25,000 certified vital record documents each week. VitalChek, with
headquarters in Nashville, provides service in all 50 states as well as
British Columbia, Canada. Neither VitalChek nor ChoicePoint has access to
vital records; rather, VitalChek facilitates the order and fulfillment of
vital records by the government agencies that maintain them.

About Zierer Visa Service
Founded in 1954, ZVS is the most experienced and well-established passport
and visa company of its kind in the world. More than one million travelers
have used ZVS to secure necessary documentation to travel to destinations
around the globe. With current offices located throughout the U.S. and London,
ZVS is the leader in its industry and committed to providing the most
professional and expeditious service for its clients' travel documentation
needs. The company is based in San Francisco.

VitalChek and ChoicePoint are registered trademarks and
OfficialTravelDocuments.com is a service mark of ChoicePoint Asset Company.



SOURCE VitalChek
Web Site: http://www.OfficialTravelDocuments.com

Registered Traveler Test Suspended

Washington Post Article.

melted gummie bear candies

"Recently, cryptographers in Japan showed that common fingerprint-based systems can be easily duped using simple molds of melted Gummi Bear candies."

from BusinessWeek

The State of Surveillance
August 8, 2005
p.56

Scanner may reveal passport forgeries

British scientists have announced that they have discovered a relatively inexpensive and surprisingly robust new way to defeat forgers attempting to fake birth certificates, passports and other documents.

The scientists have built a laser scanner that sweeps across the surface of paper, cardboard or plastic, recording all of the unique microscopic imperfections that are a ntatural part of manufacturing such materials.

This scan serves as a "fingerprint" which, the scientists say, has two surprising properties: the fingerprints are robust, surviving scorching, dousing in water, crumpling and scribbling over with pens. And these fingerprints depend on structures that are so complex and so small - on the scale of between one-tenth and one ten-thousandth the diameter of a human hair- that noone will be able to copy one for the forseeable future.

To authenticate a passport, for example, someone would scan one of the pages at a predetermined spot and compare the results to a scan made when the passport was first issued.

"This is a whole new approach to countering fraud and counterfeiting," said Russell Cowburn, who led the research and is aprofessor of nonotechnology at Imperial College London.

The Government Printing Office is planning to conduct an independent test of the scanner in the next few months, according to Michael L. Walsh, the chief technical officer there.

The technique is described in the journal Nature.

from the Indianapolis Star, page A22, no date notation made when I saved the article, probably sometime in the last few months, just catching up.

biometric cash cards trace veins

The Wall Street Journal

July 21, 2005


New Biometric Identifier Is at Hand

By ANDREW MORSE
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
July 21, 2005; Page B4

On the surface, the new cash cards offered by Japan's Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group look like those issued by any bank, anywhere. It's the images of blood vessels stored inside them that make them different.

Each card holds a map of the veins in a customer's hand, a unique vascular "fingerprint."

At the automated teller machine, customers pop in their cards and place their hand over a scanner that was developed by electronics giant Fujitsu Ltd. Within a second, the palm-size machine compares the scan with the pattern stored in the card's circuitry. A match means a customer is free to withdraw as much as $20,000, the maximum daily limit for the bank.

Biometric technology, which uses the characteristics of a body part to confirm a person's identity, isn't new. Fingerprints and eye scans have been used in the past. But Mitsubishi Tokyo, Japan's largest bank in terms of market capitalization, in October became the first to bring vein recognition to the cash dispenser. Now, competitors Mizuho Bank Ltd. and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. are preparing similar cards using a competing technology from Hitachi Ltd. Even smaller regional lenders, such as Suruga Bank of Shizuoka, are using vein-based biometric technologies at their branches.

The U.S., where $2.7 billion in fraudulent transactions occurred last year, is more accustomed to security breaches. In Japan, a wave of recent cash and credit-card thefts is only recently transforming personal financial security into a national obsession. While the amount stolen in ATM fraud cases was a tiny $9 million last year, the high growth rate -- fraud cases more than doubled last year -- is enough to mobilize Japan's technology experts to design a host of security gadgets.

For Japanese developers, Japan also is a test case for bigger potential markets abroad, including the U.S.

Fujitsu, which began marketing its vein-recognition technology outside Japan this month, says it has received inquiries from more than 100 companies. It hopes to rack up global sales of about $800 million in three years.

It isn't clear how quickly palm-vein authentication will catch on in the rest of the world. The technology isn't cheap: Equipping a standard ATM with the hand scanner costs about $3,000. And customers still aren't accustomed to it. Arm rests had to be installed at Mitsubishi Tokyo ATMs because initial customers held their hands at different heights, confusing the scanners.

Generally, though, the system is simple to use. And while fingerprints may change if a person works with chemicals, veins in the palm don't have that problem.

"It's only a matter of time before this sort of verification technology is adopted by banks in major markets around the world," says Neil Katkov, an analyst at the Tokyo office of Celent LLC, a financial-services consultancy. "It's one of the easiest-to-use biometric technologies for an ATM."

Fujitsu's machines work by shooting a beam of invisible light through a customer's hand. Part of that light is absorbed by the blood flowing through the hand, leaving shadows that create a map of the veins. Fujitsu's researchers chose the palm because it is relatively unaffected by cold temperatures, which can cause veins to contract. There is no hair on a person's palm, meaning there is nothing to obstruct the light beams. And because so many veins run through a palm, each person has a different pattern.

"There's a lot of information in here," says Akira Wakabayashi, a director of Fujitsu's biometric business department, pointing to his palm. Fujitsu declined to say how much it spent developing the technology, but analysts estimate it was at least tens of millions of dollars.

Development began four years ago, when Fujitsu researchers did a feasibility study on applying the company's advanced imaging technology to a biometric product. At first, Fujitsu thought the technology could be put into computer mice as a way to prevent unauthorized users from accessing workstations. It later considered deploying the technology in locks for condominiums, health clubs and automobile ignition systems.

Meanwhile, Mitsubishi Tokyo was looking for ways to differentiate its cash cards, which have just begun incorporating a Visa credit card. When the bank contacted Fujitsu in 2003, the technology company suggested adding palm-vein authentication to the bank card. Now, Mitsubishi Tokyo has installed 1,400 terminals across the country.

To encourage more people to use them, Mitsubishi Tokyo won't charge a fee for a standard card. Though less than 5% of its depositors currently use the secure cards, Mitsubishi Tokyo is aiming to get five million cards in use by 2008. It says it receives about 2,500 applications for the card each day.

The next step: folding the secure cash card into a cellphone for greater convenience. Already, NTT DoCoMo Inc., Japan's biggest mobile-phone operator, along with Mitsubishi Tokyo and Fujitsu, has developed a prototype of a cellphone with cash-card functions. "The two things that every person on the street has are a cash card and a cellphone," said Shinji Munekuni, a spokesman for the bank. "Put them together and you might be able to get more business."

diplomatic pouch

The Christian Science Monitor - csmonitor.com
from the September 14, 2005 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0914/p04s01-usfp.html

Guess what doesn't get screened by airlines? Diplomatic pouches.
Security experts worry that terrorists could exploit the protected status of these bags.

By Alexandra Marks | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON - Despite the intense scrutiny of airline passengers and their bags since 9/11, potentially explosive gaps still exist.

Top among them, for some analysts, are diplomatic bags - the privileged cargo that is given special immunity.

Security experts worry that terrorists could exploit the status of diplomatic pouches, which are protected from being opened or detained in any way by the Vienna Convention of 1961. In the past, rogue countries and individuals have used such bags to transport drugs, arms, and cash - and even to smuggle people. That's because a diplomatic pouch can be a crate big enough to carry a large desk.

Some security experts say it's "only a matter of time" before terrorists aligned with a rogue nation - or a dissatisfied diplomatic employee in a friendly one - find a way to abuse the privilege. To prevent that, a growing number of security experts, along with some diplomatic scholars, are calling for the United States and the international community to revisit the sanctity of diplomatic pouches.

The issue is gaining ground as the International Civil Aviation Organization, which sets global aviation standards and best practices, prepares to review its security guidelines later this month.

"The US needs to take the lead in saying this is a vulnerability that needs to at least be explored," says aviation security analyst Andrew Thomas of the University of Akron in Ohio. "Putting our heads in the sand and acting like it's still 1961 in a post-9/11 environment is just not the way to go."

But advocates of more tabs on diplomatic pouches have found an unlikely opponent - the US government itself. The State Department has consistently opposed screening diplomatic bags. "We support [the Vienna Convention] as it stands," says spokesman Noel Clay. That's because it doesn't want American diplomatic pouches screened when they are used overseas. The department worries such a move could compromise the nation's international intelligence operations, Mr. Clay says.

That view is shared by many in the intelligence and foreign affairs communities. The logic is based on preserving the integrity of the Vienna Convention, says Alfred Rubin, professor emeritus of international law at Tufts University's Fletcher School in Medford, Mass. So, if the US insists on screening another country's diplomatic bags, then the US would be vulnerable to the same treatment.

"Then American diplomatic pouches can presumably be examined and X-rayed or opened by our Latin American and African neighbors, and America doesn't want that," says Professor Rubin. "But I do think we have to explore the options."

Advocates of diplomatic bag screening contend there are ways to protect diplomatic protocol and at the same time increase aviation security. For instance, countries could ferry sensitive documents and technology on their own military aircraft.

"Because of the historical record of state sponsorship of and complicity with terrorism, it's certainly something that should be discussed, especially when it comes to nonintrusive means of checking," says Prof. Robert Lieber of Georgetown University in Washington.

Since 9/11, the Canadian government has implemented a policy that allows it to request examination of a diplomatic pouch if it has reason to believe the contents are suspect. "If the process is unsuccessful, [they can] deny transportation of the bag," e-mailed Vanessa Vermette of Transport Canada in response to a question.

Asked if the US has a similar policy in place, Clay of the State Department did not answer directly with a yes or no. "Diplomatic pouches are inviolable under international accords," he says. "We expect that host countries will obey the uses of the diplomatic pouch and institute reasonable precautions to ensure they're used only as intended."

But there is a long history of diplomatic pouches not being used as intended. For instance, in 1984, British authorities found a former Nigerian government minister who'd been abducted and drugged in a large diplomatic crate bound for Nigeria from the Stansted Airport. Also in the crate was a man who was conscious and equipped with drugs and syringes, according to the the July 1985 issue of The American Journal of International Law. Three people were arrested and charged, one of whom claimed diplomatic immunity.

When asked recently if the issue of diplomatic bag screening should be revisited, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff demurred. "There's a lot of law and custom and treaty obligations with respect to this matter," he said at a Monitor breakfast. "We do want to be mindful of all kinds of threats, but we want to operate within the treaty obligations we have."

$79.95 to join the new age elite

The New York Times
September 13, 2005
A $79.95 Opportunity to Breeze Through Security
By JOE SHARKEY

NOT to put too fine a point on it, but I'd rather take a whack up the side of the head with a sack of cobblestones than wait in a long line to be treated badly when my turn comes.

This helps explain why I told Steve Brill last week to please take my $79.95 and sign me up. Mr. Brill, who founded Court TV and The American Lawyer magazine, is now the chief executive of a company called Verified Identity Pass. If Mr. Brill gets his way (and he usually does), his company's Clear Registered Traveler Program could soon have many members paying $79.95 each year to obtain an identity card that allows them to pass through airport checkpoints without being treated like a prisoner being hustled to the cellblock.

The program is only now in an early test phase at Orlando International Airport in Florida. It's one of six registered-traveler programs that have been tried this year at various airports.

Mr. Brill's program had about 7,000 enrolled members within a month after it started in mid-July, and he predicts it will have 10,000 "within a few weeks." Other pilot programs, which are administered by the Transportation Security Administration and don't charge a fee, are limited to 2,000 members at each participating airport.

What they all have in common is the means to let travelers identify themselves with a thin card encoded with their biometric data - iris and fingerprint scans - that the T.S.A. has checked against what Mr. Brill's company describes as "various terrorist-threat-related databases" and concluded that you have passed muster.

The reward for that is expedited passage through security in a designated lane, along with the assurance that you won't be randomly hauled aside for one of those secondary inspections and pat downs. Other future benefits, Mr. Brill said, might exempt travelers from much disliked rules like having to take off their shoes or remove laptops from their cases.

Suppose your airline has marked your boarding pass with the dreaded SSSS symbol. That supposedly means you probably did something suspicious, like flying on a one-way ticket or abruptly changing a reservation, both, of course, common behavior for business travelers. Whip out your registered traveler card and, voilà, the S's disappear, Mr. Brill said.

"When you come to our kiosk and put in your card with your prints, our attendant puts a big T.S.A. stamp on your boarding pass that overrides the four S's," he said.

A survey this year by the National Business Travel Association and the Travel Industry Association of America found that 53 percent of business travelers said they would pay an annual fee to participate in a registered-traveler program.

Mr. Brill's initiative was timely. It was also carefully designed to allay concerns about the potential for invasion of privacy whenever the government gets a green light to conduct background checks.

To obtain a Clear Registered Traveler card, an applicant provides the company with his or her name, address, birth date, Social Security number, and two forms of government-issued ID. Digital images of an applicant's fingerprints and irises are made. The biographical and digital information is then sent to the T.S.A., which checks it. Mr. Brill's company says it guarantees restitution of any financial loss that might arise from the "highly unlikely event" that its basic information on you is used for identity theft.

The company does not get access to the T.S.A.'s evaluation, nor to any financial or other information on the applicant. Neither the company nor the applicant is told why an applicant is rejected.

Still, privacy advocates are watching registered-travel programs with some trepidation. "They're saying, 'Hey, kids, are you interested in moving through the line faster? Come on down and sign up for this card, and if you pass the secret test, you'll get one of these things. But if you aren't cool enough to pass, we're not going to tell you why,' " said Bill Scannell, a privacy advocate and a former military intelligence officer.

Not all frequent travelers like the idea. David J. Silbey, a history professor who travels frequently, said that expediting the journey comfortably for the most frequent, and therefore most influential, travelers could "reduce pressure significantly" to enact necessary changes in standard airport security.

How big is the potential market for a fee-based registered-traveler card? "There is an industry here," said Mr. Brill, who estimates his start-up costs at $2 million for each airport. "There are probably eight million people in the United States who would buy this over the next five to six years, and we think we can get a third of the market."

Big Brother's Data Mining Efforts

GAO report on data mining issues.