A $79.95 Opportunity to Breeze Through Security

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

September 13, 2005
A $79.95 Opportunity to Breeze Through Security

By JOE SHARKEY
NOT to put too fine a point on it, but I'd rather take a whack up the  
side of the head with a sack of cobblestones than wait in a long line  
to be treated badly when my turn comes.

This helps explain why I told Steve Brill last week to please take my  
$79.95 and sign me up. Mr. Brill, who founded Court TV and The  
American Lawyer magazine, is now the chief executive of a company  
called Verified Identity Pass. If Mr. Brill gets his way (and he  
usually does), his company's Clear Registered Traveler Program could  
soon have many members paying $79.95 each year to obtain an identity  
card that allows them to pass through airport checkpoints without  
being treated like a prisoner being hustled to the cellblock.

The program is only now in an early test phase at Orlando  
International Airport in Florida. It's one of six registered-traveler  
programs that have been tried this year at various airports.

Mr. Brill's program had about 7,000 enrolled members within a month  
after it started in mid-July, and he predicts it will have 10,000  
"within a few weeks." Other pilot programs, which are administered by  
the Transportation Security Administration and don't charge a fee,  
are limited to 2,000 members at each participating airport.

What they all have in common is the means to let travelers identify  
themselves with a thin card encoded with their biometric data - iris  
and fingerprint scans - that the T.S.A. has checked against what Mr.  
Brill's company describes as "various terrorist-threat-related  
databases" and concluded that you have passed muster.

The reward for that is expedited passage through security in a  
designated lane, along with the assurance that you won't be randomly  
hauled aside for one of those secondary inspections and pat downs.  
Other future benefits, Mr. Brill said, might exempt travelers from  
much disliked rules like having to take off their shoes or remove  
laptops from their cases.

Suppose your airline has marked your boarding pass with the dreaded  
SSSS symbol. That supposedly means you probably did something  
suspicious, like flying on a one-way ticket or abruptly changing a  
reservation, both, of course, common behavior for business travelers.  
Whip out your registered traveler card and, voilà, the S's disappear,  
Mr. Brill said.

"When you come to our kiosk and put in your card with your prints,  
our attendant puts a big T.S.A. stamp on your boarding pass that  
overrides the four S's," he said.

A survey this year by the National Business Travel Association and  
the Travel Industry Association of America found that 53 percent of  
business travelers said they would pay an annual fee to participate  
in a registered-traveler program.

Mr. Brill's initiative was timely. It was also carefully designed to  
allay concerns about the potential for invasion of privacy whenever  
the government gets a green light to conduct background checks.

To obtain a Clear Registered Traveler card, an applicant provides the  
company with his or her name, address, birth date, Social Security  
number, and two forms of government-issued ID. Digital images of an  
applicant's fingerprints and irises are made. The biographical and  
digital information is then sent to the T.S.A., which checks it. Mr.  
Brill's company says it guarantees restitution of any financial loss  
that might arise from the "highly unlikely event" that its basic  
information on you is used for identity theft.

The company does not get access to the T.S.A.'s evaluation, nor to  
any financial or other information on the applicant. Neither the  
company nor the applicant is told why an applicant is rejected.

Still, privacy advocates are watching registered-travel programs with  
some trepidation. "They're saying, 'Hey, kids, are you interested in  
moving through the line faster? Come on down and sign up for this  
card, and if you pass the secret test, you'll get one of these  
things. But if you aren't cool enough to pass, we're not going to  
tell you why,' " said Bill Scannell, a privacy advocate and a former  
military intelligence officer.

Not all frequent travelers like the idea. David J. Silbey, a history  
professor who travels frequently, said that expediting the journey  
comfortably for the most frequent, and therefore most influential,  
travelers could "reduce pressure significantly" to enact necessary  
changes in standard airport security.

How big is the potential market for a fee-based registered-traveler  
card? "There is an industry here," said Mr. Brill, who estimates his  
start-up costs at $2 million for each airport. "There are probably  
eight million people in the United States who would buy this over the  
next five to six years, and we think we can get a third of the market."

E-mail: jsharkey () nytimes com

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