High-Tech IDs Necessary for Port Security

Workers at every port in the United States will be required to carry Transportation Worker Identification Credentials (TWIC) as of this fall – and a new report says the cards will be almost impossible to counterfeit.

According to an article by Danielle Kaeding in The Daily Telegram, the cards will have a chip embedded in them that contain the fingerprints and iris information of anyone with access to the nation’s ports.

“This is something that would be extremely difficult — almost impossible to counterfeit,” Duluth Seaway Port Authority Facilities Manager Jim Sharrow told Kaeding. “So, if you’re trying to keep an unknown person or a terrorist out of a facility, it would be very hard for a person — a known terrorist or a person with any kind of terrorist background to get one of these cards.”

But while the cards are expected to be available in late September, Sharrow told Kaeding there are still some kinks to iron out.

“The gates at these facilities are already guarded gates at the times that they needed to be guarded. Those guards would be outfitted with card readers when they’re produced, but there isn’t a federal standard for the reader yet, so it may be a matter of months — it may be a year or two before these are commonly in place in all of the ports in all of the facilities. Prior to that, the guards would just use the TWIC card as an identification card much like any other photo ID,” Sharrow told Kaeding.

Congress established the TWIC cards through the Maritime Transportation Security Act, part of Homeland Security. Around 750,000 port workers are expected to obtain the cards.