DHS announces delay in TWIC implementation for maritime and port workers

It may be time to start calling it the TWIT program. We have reported already the many problems associated with the Transportation Worker Identity Credential (TWIC) program, DHS’s efforts to implement a single identification card across the transportation sector. Many of these missteps, longtime readers may recall, are associated with Representative Harold Rogers (R-Kentucky), whose efforts to steer contracts to home-state companies and underqualified out-of-state contributers suggest a certain lack of seriousness about the TWIC enterprise.

It would nonetheless be unfair to lay all the blame at Rogers’ feet. He is, after all, just one man, and there is plenty of room in the $1.39 billion appropropriation for other errors and lapses, some of which are technical and beyond the hand of even the most concerted meddler.

Just this week, for instance, DHS quietly announced that port facility and maritime workers would not be issued the required biometric identification cards on schedule. The reason? A DHS pilot program used contactless card readers supplied by BearingPoint, but soon afterwards DHS announced a plan to align the transportation workers’ credentials with Federal Information Processing Standard 201 (FIPS 201) used for the non-maritime TWIC identification cards. This caused a major problem because FIPS 201 does not include software permitting secure contactless reading, yet card-swiping machines are extremely vulnerable to saltwater corrosion and other maritime hazards.

“Vessels at sea present unique environmental challenges,” said a senior congressional staffer. He predicted it would take at least six months before the problem was resolved. 750,000 maritime workers are expected to eventually receive the cards.

-read more in this Washington Technology report