A three-year pilot project to test different types of smart card readers used to verify the authenticity of transportation worker credentials at a seven seaports around the country found that the reader technology can work in ports and adds another layer of security in reducing the risk that an unauthorized person could access a secure area, the Department of Homeland Security says in a report.
The report also says that the use of the devices to read Transportation Worker Identification Credentials (TWIC) does not “significantly” increase throughput times for workers passing through access control points on ports.
Next up for DHS is to issue a final rule that will help guide ports around the country with their respective implementations of TWIC readers without prescribing a “one-size-fits-all” approach given the differences between port facilities.
Rep. Benny Thompson (D-Miss), the ranking member on the House Homeland Security Committee, released the DHS report on Tuesday evening, calling it “an important first step” while noting that “there’s still a long road ahead to full implementation.” He wants DHS to move quickly with the card reader rule-making, particularly given that the first of workers to receive TWIC credentials will be paying for new cards later this year and because a key funding source for the reader pilots, port security grants, is being cut each year.
DHS began issuing TWIC cards to various port workers, including truckers that visit ports, in the fall of 2007. With the exception of the locations of the card reader pilots, which began in 2008, access control at most ports for TWIC card holders continues to be done with manual authentication and checks.
Through the pilot project, which was mandated by Congress, DHS tested fixed and portable readers as well as readers that required a worker to swipe a credential, called a contact reader, and to place card nearby or against the reader, called contactless. In some locations workers’ fingerprints, which are also electronically embedded in their TWIC cards as part of the enrollment and issuance process, were used with the readers to automatically verify that a particular card belonged to the cardholder.
Among the findings of the report are that some readers worked better than others, that fixed readers incorporating both contactless and contact capabilities were more efficient, that fixed contactless readers protected from weather elements did better in harsh conditions than exposed fixed contact readers, which suffered from wet conditions, facilities that could use existing infrastructure saved costs, and that networks dedicated to just TIWC and physical access control systems showed faster transaction times and higher validation rates than shared networks.