By Calvin Biesecker

Testing over the spring and summer of biometric technologies to record the departure of foreign nationals from U.S. airports was successful, according to an official with the program office that managed the pilot project.

The pilot projects, part of the US-VISIT program, were conducted at two airports by two different Homeland Security agencies, Customs and Border Protection at an airline departure gate and the Transportation Security Administration at an airport checkpoint.

“What it proved was you could do it at either place,” Shonnie Lyon, acting deputy director at the US-VISIT program, said last month at a conference sponsored by the National Defense Industrial Association.

However, Lyon said, “There are challenges with both of those; there’s human factors, there’s space factors but the reality of being able to identify foreign nationals and capture those prints, that was proven that it could be done. Once we finish these evaluation reports to congress we’ll have to see where that goes.”

The testing was conducted between late May and early July at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. TSA and CBP officers tested 3M Corp.‘s [MMM] RT Mobile scanner and Cross Match Technologies‘ Guardian R multimodal biometric jump kit.

Both technologies worked, Lyon told sister publication TR2.

One decision the Department of Homeland Security will have to make is deciding the best place to collect the biometrics of foreign nationals leaving the country at an airport, Lyon says. There is also the issue of cost, he adds.

The US-VISIT program previously tested the use of self-service kiosks at airports but that didn’t go well, largely due to a low compliance rate by foreign nationals. In addition, the program had to lease space from the airports for the kiosk and the locations weren’t that good, Lyon said. That’s a matter of money, he added.

Lyon is frequently asked why it has been difficult to find an exit solution as part of the US-VISIT and he said the main reason is that most places of departure in the country were never constructed with that in mind, particularly land ports where the “roads lead right into Canada or Mexico.” It is similar with airports where there is no infrastructure to accommodate foreign nationals leaving the country, he said.

The US-VISIT program is exploring other exit types of programs, including one with CBP involving temporary workers in the United States on H-2 visas. Lyon said a 12-month pilot project will begin in early December to identify H-2 workers entering the country, including capturing of fingerprints, and then record their departure using biometrics when they depart the United States. The pilot locations will be in Douglas, Ariz., and San Luis, Calif.

The US-VISIT program has supported CBP in building weatherized kiosks that will be located at both land ports for the pilot. The project goals include understanding the impact on the temporary worker program and “also to see if we can capture biometrics of individuals leaving in a pedestrian type setting at the southern border,” Lyon said.

As to what the Department of Homeland Security has in mind for US-VISIT exit solutions at the land borders, Lyon said there is “nothing concrete” for now. Several studies have been done by the US-VISIT program, one of which was completed late in 2008 and is still being reviewed by DHS for its feasibility and how it would be set up, Lyon said.