RegisteredTraveler this summer

Trusted Traveler To Fly: TSA Approves Nationwide, Fee-Based, Federal/Private Program
TSA Approves Nationwide, Fee-Based, Federal/Private Program

By Jay Boehmer

NOVEMBER 14, 2005 -- The Transportation Security Administration next summer plans to launch its Registered Traveler program on a permanent and nationwide basis, following a five-airport test that concluded in September. TSA said the program, set to roll out on June 20, would be a fee-funded cooperative between private industry and the federal government that would expedite airport security screening for travelers who satisfy background checks.

During testimony before a House subcommittee this month, TSA director Kip Hawley said the government will establish requirements for background checks and set biometric standards for the program, while approved private companies would manage Registered Traveler operations at airports. As such, the permanent Registered Traveler program largely would employ as its template an ongoing Orlando sub-pilot, which is operated by Verified Identity Pass (BTN, June 20).

Steven Brill, CEO of Verified Identity Pass, said his company is working with its competitors and TSA to establish interoperable guidelines, so that airport programs operated by various vendors can offer compatibility. Brill, during testimony before the House, likened the interoperability standards to bank issuers and automated teller machines, noting that cards issued by one bank can be used at another.

"TSA is going to have a process by which providers like us are certified," Brill told BTN last week. "They want to make sure Mohammed Atta isn't going into the registered traveler business or that some small company whose brother-in-law operates an airport is getting that contract. They'll welcome small and large competitors, but they want to make sure everyone meets the same technical and security standards."

Ahead of TSA's deadline for interoperability standards, Brill said the company and its competitors are poised to launch Registered Traveler programs at between 30 and 40 major airports in the United States within the next six months. "It would not surprise me if before June there was a bunch of airports that had completed their process of choosing a service provider, of getting clearance from TSA and were operating programs," he said. "We're on the verge of announcing a few airports that have already made their decisions."

TSA's Hawley said that in addition to a speedier run through security checkpoints, cleared travelers may be exempt from removing shoes and coats and perhaps may have separate lanes for screening—as is done in Orlando.

Although the goal of the Registered Traveler program is to provide approved travelers a common experience and compatibility from airport to airport, Hawley said TSA could not ensure that all airports participating follow the same format. "To the extent possible, TSA believes that benefits should be consistent across airport environments. However, our ability to provide benefits such as dedicated screening lanes will be limited by the design and space availability at participating airports."

Also under consideration, Hawley said, is the degree to which background checks are conducted. "TSA is strongly considering whether a full criminal-history records check should be undertaken," according to Hawley. "We would anticipate that a full criminal-records check, when done in conjunction with our collected biometrics, would allow us to better screen applicants to the program and provide them with more significant benefits."

As TSA mulls its options, Brill mulls the corporate market, saying that his company is working on a program to offer volume discounts to corporate clients who wish to purchase annual memberships for the program, which otherwise costs about $80 per year.

In another move to make itself more palatable to the corporate market, Verified Identity Pass in September signed a deal with Cendant Travel Distribution Services to offer Orbitz for Business and Travelport customers an unspecified discount to join the program (BTN, Oct. 3). Brill last week said the company is exploring other partnerships.

Kevin Iwamoto, global commodity manager for Hewlett-Packard Co., said the "jury is out" on whether many companies would pay for such a program on behalf of their travelers. "If the government encourages it by making it a tax-deductible expenditure for corporations, then it would be safe to say that companies would jump on it," he said. "However, if the government says they won't extend that type of status to a Registered Traveler-type program and if you want it, you buy it, then you'll see a splinter of companies that may be willing to do that."

With funding for such a program cut from next year's Department of Homeland Security budget, TSA elected to forego public funding and large government contracts in favor of allowing airports to choose which approved vendors they use. Therefore, the latest incarnation of the Registered Traveler program will rely solely on fees paid by travelers.

That model satisfies requests made by the American Association of Airport Executives. "Rather than preordaining any one proprietary system, this open architecture ensures that airports have an opportunity to work with any number of technology vendors to design a system that works best at their facility," said AAAE president Charles Barclay.

In addition to Verified Identity Pass, which is the only company currently operating a Registered Traveler test, other such vendors as Unisys—which was part of the government's pilot program—are getting into the Registered Traveler business.

Although the pilot programs at five airports throughout the U.S. by design did not offer an interoperability component, the program proved satisfactory to participants. Hawley during the hearing discussed the government's assessment of the pilot programs conducted at airports in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Houston, Boston and Washington, D.C., deeming it a success. Hawley said 95 percent of participants said the system was easy to use and 98 percent supported its continuation. "Further, based on the results of the Orlando sub-pilot, we have concluded that the public will accept the involvement of a private company in a Registered Traveler program that collects and processes biographic and biometric data, and that a fee-based program can attract participants."

The National Business Travel Association and the Association of Corporate Travel Executives for years have lauded the program's intent of speeding travelers through security and further endorsed TSA's commitment to a program.

"Business travelers, travel managers and their companies will be pleased to learn that after more than three years of promoting the importance of a Registered Traveler program, a timeline is finally set for putting the program in place," NBTA executive director and COO Bill Connors this month said in a statement. "Registered Traveler will increase the level of air travel security by shrinking the proverbial haystack for airport screeners, and it will speed the screening process at airports, making travel more pleasant and more productive for business travelers."

While the concept of a Registered Traveler program has won broad support from the business travel community, the American Civil Liberties Union has warned of potential pitfalls, claiming the program would jeopardize—rather than further secure—traveler safety. "This program won't make us safer," ACLU legislative counsel Timothy Sparapani said in a statement this month. "Members of a terrorist sleeper cell could obtain false identification and become registered travelers, using the lessened security screening to evade detection and commit a terrorist act."

Even Tom Ridge, the first secretary of DHS, acknowledged this as a possibility during a press conference at NBTA's annual convention in San Diego this summer (BTN, Sept. 5). When asked how to make sure that nobody in the Registered Traveler program is a terrorist, he said, "Candidly, there is no guarantee. "

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