Facing long delays in deploying Transportation Worker Identification Credential biometric card readers at U.S. ports, federal officials will soon allow transportation workers to extend their expiring TWIC cards for three years at half the normal enrollment cost.
Beginning Aug. 30, the Transportation Security Administration will allow the three-year extension to TWIC holders whose cards are due to expire before December 31, 2014, TSA said Friday.
TSA plans to streamline the extension process and will charge only $60 for the new biometric credential, less than half of the regular $129.50 TWIC enrollment fee.
The extension program is being offered as a short-term concession until the full benefits of the costly tamper-resistant TWIC card can be realized through a proposed U.S. Coast Guard reader rule expected by the end of 2012, TSA said.
The TWIC program so far has enrolled nearly two million maritime workers, ranging from longshoreman to drayage truck drivers.
However, TSA and the Coast Guard have been lagging behind in their efforts to comply with an August 2012 congressional mandate for a final rule requiring installation of technologies that would authenticate a transportation worker’s identity by reading the worker’s fingerprint embedded in the TWIC.
TSA officials are now predicting they’ll miss the deadline and that the card readers may not actually be deployed until 2015 at the nearly 2,600 marine facilities and onboard nearly 13,000 United States-flag vessels where workers need TWICs to gain unescorted access.
Until then, TWICs will generally only be used for visual inspection, making them essentially a “flash pass,” which significantly reduces their value as a security measure, and adds to the cost and time required to inspect them, according to a congressional report issued earlier this month.
