Auditors tell congress to halt maritime worker biometric id rules

Professional Mariner Forum
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AUDITORS TELL CONGRESS TO HALT MARITIME WORKER BIOMETRIC ID RULES[RIGHT]NICK UT/AP[/RIGHT]Federal auditors advised Congress to revoke a law requiring employees to swipe biometric identification cards to access secure port facilities until officials prove the value of ID card readers.
The Transportation Worker Identification Program, which is more than a decade behind schedule, requires that maritime workers undergo background checks and use ID cards to enter certain harbor areas without an escort. During a $23 million trial, the Homeland Security Department tested card readers to make sure they could verify identities and block access. But independent auditors on Wednesday reported the department’s findings are unsubstantiated.
“Eleven years after initiation, DHS has not demonstrated how, if at all, TWIC will improve maritime security,” wrote Stephen Lord, director for homeland security and justice Issues at the Government Accountability Office. “Congress should consider repealing the requirement that the Secretary of Homeland Security promulgate final regulations” based on the test’s findings and instead “complete an assessment that evaluates the effectiveness of using TWIC with readers for enhancing port security.”
DHS did not collect data to back the conclusion that the cards and readers provide “a critical layer of port security,” his report stated. The readers and access control systems were unable to record reasons for errors, according to auditors. Also, DHS and independent evaluators failed to collect comprehensive data on malfunctioning cards. And participants did not document instances of denied access.
Rolling out the program nationwide is expected to cost $3 billion, plus an additional $234.2 million for installing the card readers at 570 facilities and vessels.
The top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee agreed that lawmakers should hold off on wasting additional funds on an effort that already has cost $544 million.

“The program continues to suffer from fundamental problems that undermine its ability to provide the security benefits Congress intended,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the committee’s ranking member said in an email. “Port workers and industry stakeholders have invested their time, effort, and money into this troubled program, holding up their end of the bargain.”

Thomspon said he supports the auditors’ recommendation that DHS conduct an effectiveness assessment of the security benefits of TWICs and the use of biometric readers "before the American people are expected to invest additional money in this program. We cannot continue to throw good money after bad with this program."
DHS officials, in an April 17 letter responding to a draft report, defended the rigor of their assessments and said the department did not have enough funding to perform the type of study GAO had expected to see.
“There were limited fiscal and workforce resources made available at participating sites,” wrote Jim Crumpacker, director of the department’s GAO-Office of Inspector General Liaison Office. Also, DHS officials wanted the tests to cover a wide range of service conditions but “avoid interfering with daily operations,” both of which “affected data collection.”
“The perceived data anomalies GAO discussed in the report are not significant to the conclusions [DHS officials] reached during the pilot,” he added

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They just started the fingerprint scanners at the APM terminal in Virginia. What a PITA is is. It won’t read my fingerprint, no matter which finger. It recognizes the chip in my card, as it always has without any problems but the fingerprint scanner is a joke.

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Just the scanner is a joke?! Har Har Har!!

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[QUOTE=ryanwood86;108687]Just the scanner is a joke?! Har Har Har!![/QUOTE]

No dear, the TWIC works very well.

It scrapes the ice off my windshield and jimmies doors just fine, thank you.

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I’m sure none of us are surprised by these findings.

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As stated in a prior post I recently had mine scanned for the first time. What a joke three reboots and half an hour later it finally read my card.

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[QUOTE=Fraqrat;108699]As stated in a prior post I recently had mine scanned for the first time. What a joke three reboots and half an hour later it finally read my card.[/QUOTE]

I may start a thread titled, “Uses of the TWIC card” or something like that. Besides windshield scraper and door jimmier there has to be a few legal and illegal uses for the venerable TWIC.

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What GAO FoundGAO’s review of the pilot test aimed at assessing the technology and operational impact of using the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) with card readers showed that the test’s results were incomplete, inaccurate, and unreliable for informing Congress and for developing a regulation (rule) about the readers. Challenges related to pilot planning, data collection, and reporting affected the completeness, accuracy, and reliability of the results. These issues call into question the program’s premise and effectiveness in enhancing security.
[B]Planning.[/B] The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not correct planning shortfalls that GAO identified in November 2009. GAO determined that these weaknesses presented a challenge in ensuring that the pilot would yield information needed to inform Congress and the regulation aimed at defining how TWICs are to be used with biometric card readers (card reader rule). GAO recommended that DHS components implementing the pilot–TSA and the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG)–develop an evaluation plan to guide the remainder of the pilot and identify how it would compensate for areas where the TWIC reader pilot would not provide the information needed. DHS agreed and took initial steps, but did not develop an evaluation plan, as GAO recommended.
[B]Data collection[/B]. Pilot data collection and reporting weaknesses include:

[ul]
[li]Installed TWIC readers and access control systems could not collect required data, including reasons for errors, on TWIC reader use, and TSA and the independent test agent (responsible for planning, evaluating, and reporting on all test events) did not employ effective compensating data collection measures, such as manually recording reasons for errors in reading TWICs.[/li][li]TSA and the independent test agent did not record clear baseline data for comparing operational performance at access points with TWIC readers.[/li][li]TSA and the independent test agent did not collect complete data on malfunctioning TWIC cards.[/li][li]Pilot participants did not document instances of denied access.[/li][/ul]
TSA officials said challenges, such as readers incapable of recording needed data, prevented them from collecting complete and consistent pilot data. Thus, TSA could not determine whether operational problems encountered at pilot sites were due to TWIC cards, readers, or users, or a combination of all three.
[B]Issues with DHS’s report to Congress and validity of TWIC security premise.[/B] DHS’s report to Congress documented findings and lessons learned, but its reported findings were not always supported by the pilot data, or were based on incomplete or unreliable data, thus limiting the report’s usefulness in informing Congress about the results of the TWIC reader pilot. For example, reported entry times into facilities were not based on data collected at pilot sites as intended. Further, the report concluded that TWIC cards and readers provide a critical layer of port security, but data were not collected to support this conclusion. For example, DHS’s assumption that the lack of a common credential could leave facilities open to a security breach with falsified credentials has not been validated. Eleven years after initiation, DHS has not demonstrated how, if at all, TWIC will improve maritime security.
Why GAO Did This StudyWithin DHS, TSA and USCG manage the TWIC program, which requires maritime workers to complete background checks and obtain biometric identification cards to gain unescorted access to secure areas of Maritime Transportation Security Act (MTSA)-regulated entities. TSA conducted a pilot program to test the use of TWICs with biometric card readers in part to inform the development of a regulation on using TWICs with card readers. As required by law, DHS reported its findings on the pilot to Congress on February 27, 2012. The Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2010 required that GAO assess DHS’s reported findings and recommendations. Thus, GAO assessed the extent to which the results from the TWIC pilot were sufficiently complete, accurate, and reliable for informing Congress and the proposed TWIC card reader rule. GAO reviewed pilot test plans, results, and methods used to collect and analyze pilot data since August 2008, compared the pilot data with the pilot report DHS submitted to Congress, and conducted covert tests at four U.S. ports chosen for their geographic locations. The test’s results are not generalizable, but provide insights.
What GAO RecommendsCongress should halt DHS’s efforts to promulgate a final regulation until the successful completion of a security assessment of the effectiveness of using TWIC. In addition, GAO revised the report based on the March 22, 2013, issuance of the TWIC card reader notice of proposed rulemaking.
FULL REPORT

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Not at all , just renewed my TWIC which allowed me to renew my port card which gives me access to the port, “not the TWIC card”. The whole thing is such a joke…

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I heard some people say that you can use it to go through the Employee line at airports and avoid long tourist lines. Never done that myself but it sounds like it might work.

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[QUOTE=PaddyWest2012;108718]I heard some people say that you can use it to go through the Employee line at airports and avoid long tourist lines. Never done that myself but it sounds like it might work.[/QUOTE]

I was able to get away with that once, in Orlando. That’s it. Everywhere else I go I get funneled into the cattle herd.

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[QUOTE=capbubba;108711]Not at all , just renewed my TWIC which allowed me to renew my port card which gives me access to the port, “not the TWIC card”. The whole thing is such a joke…[/QUOTE]

I have a port card too, from Virginia Port Authority, and they get the photo and the info straight off the TWIC! Beyond joke!

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Yup and you still have to show them both cards. Whats the point of the VPA badge if you still have to show both??

Insert c.captain like rant about the stupidity and uselessness of the TWIC card here.

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I think Lockheed Martin has ridden the gravy train long enough. Time to change up their pork project.

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[QUOTE=Bayrunner;108730]Yup and you still have to show them both cards. Whats the point of the VPA badge if you still have to show both??

Insert c.captain like rant about the stupidity and uselessness of the TWIC card here.[/QUOTE]

I know, right? It is one of the dumbest things I’ve had to do since all of this security theater of the absurd started.

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They will probably discontinue the program now that I just blew 135 bucks on a new TWIC. Much like the cash for clunkers the month after I sold a clunker and bought a new car without the extra 2k bucks I would have received from CFC program for my old Cherokee. When my ship comes in I’ll be in the port traffic control tower when it gets knocked over by “my ship”.

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[QUOTE=Too bad steam is gone;108918]They will probably discontinue the program now that I just blew 135 bucks on a new TWIC. Much like the cash for clunkers the month after I sold a clunker and bought a new car without the extra 2k bucks I would have received from CFC program for my old Cherokee. When my ship comes in I’ll be in the port traffic control tower when it gets knocked over by “my ship”.[/QUOTE]

Can you get your employer to pay for it?

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My company is so cheap they would not pay the extra 25 dollars to have an assigned seat on my flights down to the GOM. I was almost bumped twice (someone volunteered to get off an overbooked flight) ,so they finally started coughing up the extra $25 for an assigned seat with my reservation. No way they they would pay for any of my documents. Form 2106, IRS non reimbursed employee business expenses: meals, mileage to and from TWIC office, license cost and trips to REC for renewal, tools, work clothes, etc, etc. Read the tax laws and take full advantage of them. I did when I was 23 years old and still read all new tax laws each years when filing. Any expenses above 2% of your adjusted gross income are deductible off the top of your income.

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I recently talked to a restaurant owner who has to show a TWIC card before buying fish at the Boston Fish Pier. Restaurant owners?

I’d like my money back. Please credit the card I used to pay for this foolish boondoggle.

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Recently a pilot was talking about renewing his, and what a load of BS it is that every tug he goes on they make him show it, per company policy. They could require picture ID for normal security screening, but the TWIC was supposed to only be for “unescorted access.” At what point is mister pilot not escorted on a 100’ tug? Maybe time to challenge it a few times to the letter of the law?