The U.S. Transportation Security Administration this month is putting some finishing touches on its next-generation passenger prescreening system, Secure Flight, to pave the way for a full rollout this summer.
TSA in October 2008 announced the final rules for the program, which shifts the responsibility of watchlist matching from airlines to the government. However, carriers and travel agencies under the program have to collect a passenger's full names, date of birth, and gender at the time of reservation.
TSA administrator Kip Hawley this week told
BTN, "The rule is out and is final and from the technology perspective is ready to go."
Still, a couple of remaining procedural items remain before of Secure Flight's liftoff, Hawley said, including fulfilling the 10 conditions that Congress in 2004 required the U.S. Government Accountability Office to examine
(BTNonline, March 28, 2005).
"They will make some pronouncement to Congress very shortly," Hawley said. "There also are some paperwork storage requirements regarding the data that comes in. We will be in position to accept feeds from carriers sometime in January or February to begin that process. It won't be widely felt until August when it will be required for everybody. We have an interim deadline in March by when airlines need to send us data they have, but that's before going completely live. In January, carriers have legal authority to ask their customers for information. In March, those who are collecting the information will send it to us. In August, they all will send us the information in the proper format and we'll do the watchlist matching."
The systems have been tested are being tested right now. "When we get the first feeds from the airlines that go first," Hawley said, "that's the real test."