In the wake of September 11, the U.S. government has set up a number of customized background check programs to control access to sensitive positions. One of the greatest areas of concern has been container ships, with the fear that dangerous material could be shipped into the United States. In addition to port safety legislation, and concern over foreign ownership of American ports, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) launched a worker credentialing program to help maritime security.
This program, called TWIC, will limit access to port facilities, outer continental shelf facilities, and vessels regulated under the Maritime Transportation Security Act (MTSA) as well as all U.S. Coast Guard credentialed merchant mariners. Anyone who goes to these areas will require a TWIC credential. According to the TSA this will affect over 750,000 people, and as such represents a very large background check program. A “tamper-resistant biometric control” will be used, which appears to include fingerprints at a minimum. The rules have not been finalized; the enrollment process, once defined, will be rolled out over 18 months and all U.S. merchant mariners are required to have one by September 25, 2008.
A few items here are relevant for the background check industry as a whole. First, it is possible for a standard criminal history to bar someone from TWIC. A murder conviction will do it, as will some less obvious candidates such as certain incidents involving rape and sexual abuse within the last 7 years, and a long list of other crimes. Second, the TWIC is expensive. It will cost $137.25; even for workers with existing comparable credentials, it will be $105.25. The combination of these two facts suggests that employers will want to do their own criminal pre-screening before paying such a steep enrollment fee, particularly for new employees. And of course the enrollment process takes time, with a wait of up to 10 days for applicants without any issues. Under these circumstances, a quick criminal check makes good economic sense.
In response to your article about TWIC, the Final Rule for TWIC was published 25JAN07 in the Federal Register, however the biometrics have yet to be defined.
Thank you. Their FAQ explicitly refers to fingerprints, so I assume they are planning to include them, possibly among other techniques.
cann’t we use smart TWIC card with magnetic strip attached to the card,so as to use decrypton keys contained in the strip to decipher encryption used between card and Reader.
This is to eliminate the glitches that we encounter through the use of keys from computer.
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