Orlando Privatizes Reg. Traveler

In light of the Transportation Security Administration's indefinitely extended and often-disparaged Registered Traveler pilot, Orlando International Airport next month will begin issuing $80 "smart cards" to frequent travelers who pass background checks and volunteer biometric information like fingerprints and iris scans.

The Orlando project, which becomes operational in July, is the first to be funded, operated and marketed by an airport and its private-sector partners, in this case a team of companies headed by Lockheed Martin Corp., the U.S. defense contractor. It also will be open to applicants flying on any commercial carrier.

Volunteers accepted into the program receive a smart card embedded with biometric information, such as a fingerprint and iris scan. Using the card, with the brand name "Clear," at a special kiosk at the security area, entitles them to expedited screening.

Brigitte Rivera Goersch, director of security for the Greater Orlando Airport Authority, said the airport would begin enrolling participants at the end of June. The experiment will last six months to one year, she said, and may lead to a nationwide pilot project.

"This program will provide convenient, efficient and speedy access to the security screening process for registered travelers," Goersch said. "The benefit, as capacity returns to the airways, is improved throughout at the checkpoint, for passengers a predictable travel time schedule, and allowing TSA to focus resources."

Proponents said private-sector involvement will solve kinks emerging in a government-administered pilot project that lawmakers and security experts warned isn't working as it should.

"It's really a lame program the way it's been implemented by TSA," Rep. Peter DeFazio, (D-Ore.), said at a hearing on the program before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Economic Security, Infrastructure Protection & Cybersecurity on June 9.

The Transportation Security Administration program in Boston, Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Washington is tracking up to 10,000 passengers. The program is limited to passengers on one airline at each airport. Cards only work in the city where issued.

According to a new survey of 651 corporate travel managers and business travelers by the Business Travel Coalition, 77 percent of respondents said they support a voluntary, affordable fee-based registered traveler program that has tangible benefits and doesn't encroach on privacy. The poll, which had record participation rates for a BTC survey, was sponsored by Verified Identity Pass Inc., the New York company providing the smart cards in the Orlando program.

BTC Chairman Kevin Mitchell said the survey shows frequent travelers are bothered most by inconsistencies in security at airports around the country and the hassles they have to go through to pass, especially those with disabilities such as artificial limbs. The current system "robs travelers of time because they don't know what to expect," he said.

The Registered Traveler program is supposed to grant frequent flyers who have passed background checks by federal law enforcement officials access to separate, shorter security lines at airports. Officials said this will help persuade business travelers to resume flying and allow TSA screeners to devote more resources to detecting unexpected threats.

DeFazio and other lawmakers said registered travelers in the initial pilot cities still are being asked to remove shoes and have laptop computers inspected during the screening process at airports, causing delays to people who volunteered for the program because of its promise to expedite their travel.

C. Stewart Verdery Jr., the former Homeland Security assistant secretary for border and transportation security policy and planning, said the existing pilot project is too limited.

"While the pilots have proved popular with the small number of enrollees, they have not yet blossomed into the more comprehensive program that the traveling public desires and that DHS should pursue," said Verdery, now a principal at Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti Inc., a government affairs firm in Washington, D.C. "This result is largely due to the facts that even for enrollees the availability of RT is restricted to a handful of gates at a particular airport and the pilots were not interoperable."

Bill Connors, executive director and chief operating officer of the National Business Travel Association, said the Registered Traveler program should be expanded despite some initial kinks because the "hassle factor" at airports is "hurting the U.S. business travel climate." He said a broad-based passenger pre-screening program eventually would speed the passage of 6 million business travelers.

"It has been a good beginning," Connors said, relating his experience as a Registered Traveler at Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport. "Now, I would urge you, as quickly and efficiently as possible, to build on that foundation to enable every airport around the county to offer this service to its frequent travelers."

Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian Washington think-tank, said interest in the program is high because "people often trade privacy for convenience."

Harper expressed serious reservations about the program even as he acknowledged it would speed some travelers' journey through checkpoints.

"It is unseemly to have government agents associated with segregating `preferred' travelers from others," Harper said. "The Registered Traveler program essentially denies fairness, due process and privacy protections to volunteers. And the 'voluntariness' of the program could disappear at any time."

Harper said the Orlando program is superior to the TSA-administered pilot project because its privately issued identification card doesn't track travelers and is more protective of passengers' privacy.

Robert Isom, senior vice president for customer service at Northwest Airlines, said his company had a bad experience participating in the TSA pilot. "We have some real concerns about the state of the program, and we question whether it should even be continued," he said. Isom is especially concerned about efforts to convince passengers to pay $80 for a privately issued registered traveler card with such enticements as private lounges, valet parking and discounts at airport stores and restaurants.

"Northwest believes it would be a mistake to let this security program be transformed into a club membership organization like this," Isom said.

Mitchell said Northwest's ambivalence is rooted in deeper problems at Minneapolis airport and said the airline also is concerned about third parties acting as an intermediary between it and its customers. He said, "the airlines participating in Orlando are gung-ho" and Northwest is short-sighted. "To the extent this program recaptures a few business travelers, this is a huge benefit."

Mitchell said the pilot project isn't working well because airports don't know what to expect from the federal government.

"TSA is going to have to come out and assure airports they're supportive of this," Mitchell said. "Airports are loathe to commit to something unless they know this is the program."