Europe's two largest seaports and airports around the globe rely on biometric hand readers for heightened security.
The John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA is an internationally recognised centre of transportation and logistics expertise. Through research and development, engineering, and analysis, the Volpe Center helps decision-makers define problems and pursue solutions to lead transportation into the 21st century. The centre assists federal, state, and local governments, industry and academia in a number of areas, providing its customers with policy support, strategic planning and analysis.
The Volpe Center is part of the US Department of Transportation's Research and Innovative Technology Administration. However, it is funded 100% through a fee-for-service structure in which all of its costs are covered by sponsored project work.
The Volpe Center's Infrastructure Protection and Operations Division has developed several security systems that incorporate biometrics, which it considers a key element of most cutting-edge access control systems. The centre helped develop Inspass, an airport security system designed to speed the processing of frequent travellers (people who travel internationally at least three times a year). Inspass kiosks integrate card-reader and hand-geometry technologies to identify registered travellers. The process takes about a minute.
After studying the system against several other biometric-based security systems, the Volpe Center released some key findings, presented verbatim below:
* Template size has no relationship to uniqueness. Individual biometric data is stored in templates; the amount of data used to create a biometric template varies among systems. For example, a hand geometry template has nine digits, whereas a fingerprint template has 2000 digits. Since most people's templates will cluster in the middle range, the larger template is not necessarily more effective, particularly in large populations.
* Surprisingly, fingerprint readers are more difficult to use than hand geometry readers. Retinal scanning is difficult for most users, and is not easily accepted in many populations.
These findings summarise what officials at airports and sea ports around the globe already know and are implementing... biometrics that are easy to use, result in lower false reads, and are critical components of many cutting edge access control systems.
Biometrics in transportation applications
The Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands is Europe's largest container port and plays a very important role in the European import and export market. In 2002, some 322 million tons of cargo passed through the Port of Rotterdam. The port and adjacent industrial area spans 40 kilometres and runs from the city centre to the North Sea.
In order to stay competitive, the Port of Rotterdam must be able to quickly move cargo through its facility, while still maintaining extremely high security. By using Schlage Recognition Systems biometric hand readers together with smart chip cards, the port has implemented a fast method of identifying drivers, avoiding costly transport delays while still ensuring the highest security. Similar systems could be quickly installed in US ports.
The card looks like a normal credit card, but the chip in the card is a minicomputer that stores a three-dimensional template of the left hand of the cardholder.
At the entrance, the driver identifies himself by using the card together with a handreader. Scanned information of his left hand is compared with the template information on the smart card. He repeats the process upon leaving.
The port has been using the system to verify truck driver identities for the past four years, and have generated more than three million transactions.
The advantages of the biometrically-enhanced system are many: information cannot be manipulated or changed; the driver does not have to remember specific information such as a PIN code; the card cannot be transferred to other people; mistakes as a result of typing in incorrect ID numbers are impossible.
The Port of Antwerp (Belgium), Europe's second largest port, has joined the Port of Rotterdam in also using biometrics with a similar biometric-based system. In Antwerp, up to 20 000 longshoremen, truck drivers and visitors requiring access to one of the Port's 71 individual terminals will be validated and recorded using the system. Over 8000 credentials have already been issued.
These systems are a predecessor application to the 'Transportation Worker Identity Program (TWIC)' now being developed by the US Transportation Security Administration, which could ultimately involve six million workers at US seaports, airports, railways and other transportation facilities. Likewise, European ports must establish a process for tracking access by employees and visitors across private terminals under the International Maritime Organization's (IMO) International Code for the Security of Ships and of Port Facilities (ISPS).
Using this biometric system, both ports are able to more quickly and accurately verify the identities of authorised employees and visitors at port entrances. The biometric-based solution improves security and safety as well as operating efficiencies.
Of special importance to transportation authorities, the biometrically-enhanced smart card system ensures that information cannot be manipulated or changed, the driver does not have to remember specific information such as a PIN code, the smartcard cannot be transferred to other people, and mistakes as a result of typing in incorrect ID numbers are impossible.
More airports embracing biometrics
Airports large and small are embracing biometric technology to secure access to sensitive areas such as the tarmac. From San Francisco International Airport, which processes 250 000+ transactions a day to Ben Gurion Airport in Israel, where biometrics speed trusted travellers to the gates in minutes, it has been well-known that many major airports have switched to biometric access. Now, smaller airports are joining in with their larger peers to let passengers know their airports employ biometrics.
For instance, Toledo Express Airport in the middle of the USA is a full service, regional airport with 40 daily flights to nine destinations. With biometric handreaders, smaller airports, such as Toledo Express Airport, can monitor the movements of airport employees throughout its facility, ensuring, in a similar manner to that described at the Antwerp and Rotterdam sea ports, that only approved personnel can gain entrance to the tarmac and other critical areas.
Yeager Airport, another smaller airport in Charleston, West Virginia, USA is using five biometric handreaders to secure access to the control tower.
"We feel that hand geometry is the best and most reliable biometric technology available," reports Yeager Airport director Rick Atkinson. "We have never had any problems with the hand readers since installing them way back in December of 2001. They work fine and are easy to administer."
At Yeager Airport, hand readers restrict access to the control tower, which is located in the airport terminal, and also to the HVAC system and other sensitive equipment. The control tower doors are opened about every five minutes around the clock. The hand readers are all networked to the airport's central security system computer. One of the hand readers is used as the master for enrollment purposes. The airport also uses proximity cards for 60 other control points throughout the airport. A video surveillance system is tied to airport alarms.
"It has been the consensus since 9-11 that using biometrics as an access control validation is the way to go," emphasises Atkinson.
The airport has its own police force and it administers all of the access control equipment. Yeager Airport's tower previously required 24-hour police protection for access control. This cost the airport US$1200 a day. The hand readers have eliminated the need for guards, saving the airport a substantial sum on access control.
Transportation officials recognise that hand readers are an effective way to monitor employees, who often have access to sensitive areas of an airport where employee and passenger security could be compromised. They also understand that, although the first job of a biometric reader is to stop the wrong people from entering, the second most important job is to let the right people through. From a lower false reject rate to using less real estate on a smartcard, biometric hand geometry readers are helping facilities needing fast throughput of increased numbers of people.
Jon Mooney is the general manager of Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies, Schlage Recognition Systems Biometrics.
For more information contact Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies, www.securitytechnologies.ingersollrand.com
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