BOSTON — The U.S. Transportation Security Administration is developing a mandatory identification card for every trucker, dock worker, airport employee, and mass transit operator in the nation with access to secure corners of the country’s transportation network, the Boston Globe reported.
No date has been set to launch the Transportation Worker Identification Credential project – the result of a congressional mandate given to the agency created after Sept. 11 to protect vulnerable ports, tunnels, pipelines, and roadways.
But, if implemented, it would be the first broad national identity-card system and could involve hundreds of thousands of people.
The identification card would be required of transportation workers, in the private and public sectors, with access ”to secure areas of the transportation system,” according to the agency. This could encompass a cross section of employees, everyone from port stevedores to subway-tunnel maintenance workers to the operators of airport catering trucks.
”This is our top issue, and we are going to be making serious progress on it soon,” said Elaine Charney, branch chief of transportation infrastructure for the agency’s maritime and land security division. ”We just have to iron out some details.”
But ”we are certain it’s coming,” she said.
Contentious proposals floated after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks had called for the creation of a national identification card for all Americans or a national driver’s license.
But just the number of truckers potentially required to get the transportation worker identification card would easily rise to the ”hundreds of thousands,” said Dave Osiecki, vice president for safety and operations for the American Trucking Associations. There are about 3.1 million truckers in the country, according to federal statistics.
Charney said that, while few definites have emerged as the ID system is developed, it would appear at this point that only ”higher-risk transportation workers” would be required to get the cards at first. Those workers, she said, would probably be those in security zones at airports, as well as any transportation employee who handles dangerous cargo.
Federal officials also appear committed to a form of biometric identification on the cards, such as that gleaned from the eyes, voice, palms, or fingerprints, Charney said. No technology has been chosen, she added. The project faces a number of problems, such as how such a massive identification system would be funded, how privacy concerns of cardholders would best be addressed, and how transportation workers would verify their identities prior to receiving the identification.
Steve Keppler, director of policies and programs for the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, an international group of law enforcement, regulatory, and industry organizations involved with trucking, said a primary concern is the documentation used to obtain the identification.
”A lot of what we learned on 9/11 was that terrorists can have legitimate identification, but that they get it under false pretenses,” Keppler said. ”So you’ve got to look at where the authoritative source is. Frankly, we don’t have an opinion, but biometrics could help deal with that problem.”
Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and Liberty program at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the ACLU opposed the national ID and the national driver’s license proposals because of the large populations they would involve. They would ”create a black market in cards and not solve the terrorism problem,” Steinhardt said.
But the idea of requiring an identification card for transportation workers, he said, would probably make sense, depending on the reliability of the biometric-verification device used. If the agency settles on a proven technology, the card would create ”a positive good with few, if any, civil liberties downsides,” Steinhardt said.
Both private and public employers of transportation workers have expressed some concerns that the agency, once it has developed the ID system, would make them pay for criminal background tests, drug tests, and the creation of the card. No such decisions have been made, agency officials said yesterday.
The Massachusetts Port Authority – which operates Logan International Airport, the Black Falcon shipping terminal, and the Tobin Bridge – said they endorse the card system and would be willing to be a test site for the technology.
”We are thinking primarily of Logan, but we would be willing to do it anywhere at our facility,” said spokeswoman Barbara Platt.
Charney said the Transportation Security Administration is entering the ”preplanning” stages for such a pilot program, even though the agency had hoped to begin wide implementation as early as this fall.
According to preliminary mockups available on the agency’s Web site, the ID card would probably be the size of a credit card and include microprinting, an intricate background pattern, ultraviolet ink, optical devices, and a thick laminate to prevent tampering or counterfeiting.
In addition to a worker’s photo, which would be shot in high-resolution digital film, the card would include the holder’s name, employer, an identification number, issue date, expiration date, and the agency’s name and logo.
The back of the card would feature a swipe strip, various bar codes, a microchip cavity, another optical-image device, and a ghost-image of the cardholder.
The need for such technology become paramount following the Sept. 11 attacks, when there was concern about who had access to the large quantity of hazardous materials hauled daily across the country.
In one instance, the US Justice Department found 22 individuals in Pennsylvania who had fraudently obtained licenses to ferry hazardous materials. Investigators determined that those men had no ties to terrorism.
Kenneth M. Mead, inspector general of the US Department of Transportation, issued a report stating that since 1998 fraud had been found in commercial-licensing agencies in 16 states, involving nearly 1,000 truck drivers.
That’s why, Osiecki of the American Trucking Associationssaid, the trucking industry largely favors the national ID project.
”The devil is in the details, but we are interested in knowing who we hire, who we have picking up the product, and who delivers it. This is a significant security concern,” Osiecki said. The industry already expends considerable resources on criminal background checks, drug tests, and satellite monitoring of trucks, he said.
”You don’t just hand the keys to a $100,000 truck to any old person without checking them out,” Osiecki said.