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| Subject: I.D. Newswire Optical Cards vs. Smart Cards In The Battle For Transportation ID | |
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Date Posted: 23:00:36 11/23/02 Sat http://www.cardtechnology.com/cgi-bin/readstory.pl?story=20021030IDNN772.xml ----------------------------------------------------------- I.D. Newswire Optical Cards vs. Smart Cards In The Battle For Transportation ID ----------------------------------------------------------- Smart card looked like the technology of choice for the Transportation Security Administration’s proposed worker identification card. ----------------------------------------------------------- But pressure from an influential politician has introduced optical card technology into the mix. ----------------------------------------------------------- The Immigration and Naturalization Service and the U.S. State Department are using optical cards as IDs for border crossing and immigration issues. Optical cards use technology similar to compact disks and can store up to five megabytes of data on a standard size card. However, the microprocessor cards have had the advantage when it comes to government employee IDs, with the Pentagon, U.S. Treasury Department, and the State Department using chip cards. ------------------------------------------------------------ Pilot programs of different technologies are scheduled for next year at 20 airports. The budget for the tests is reportedly $35 million. But the contract for the actual program, once a technology is chosen, could total hundreds of millions of dollars. Eventually, some 15 million workers at 429 airports and 361 seaports around the country could receive the card for access to secure areas and computer networks. ------------------------------------------------------------ The stakes could be even higher as TSA officials have said that whatever technology is chosen for its ID card will also be used for the proposed "trusted traveler" program. ------------------------------------------------------------ This program will allow frequent travelers to speed through security checks at airports after agreeing to a criminal background check. The card could be issued to as many as 15 million travelers, officials predict. ------------------------------------------------------------ And while both technologies have been used by the U.S. government Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) is making sure optical card technology is considered for the transportation worker’s ID project alongside smart cards. Rogers chairs the U.S. House of Representatives appropriations transportation subcommittee, which allocates funds for the TSA and its ID pilots. ------------------------------------------------------------ The district in southern Kentucky that Rogers represents is home to a division of SEI Technology Inc., a company that produces optical cards for the Immigration and Naturalization Service that are used as permanent residency, or "green cards." ------------------------------------------------------------ Officials at SEI and Rogers did not return calls to comment, Mountain View, Calif.-based Drexler Technology Corp., which owns the patent on the technology and has licensed it to two companies, acknowledges lobbying members of Congress to have optical card technology tested for the TSA ID program. "We made it clear to several members of Congress that it would make sense for optical cards to be considered for the TWIC environment," says Steven Price-Francis, vice president of business development at Drexler. ------------------------------------------------------------ Previous to these conversations, TSA said they were going with smart cards, according to pre-bid documents distributed by the agency this summer to ID and biometric vendors. The agency was using standards for smart card IDs developed by the U.S. General Services Administration. ------------------------------------------------------------ The cards were going to contain a digital photo ID, a hologram to prevent counterfeiting, a hefty smart card chip with 32 kilobytes of memory, at least one biometric, and a digital certificate for online authentication. The cards would also contain a magnetic stripe and a two-dimensional bar code to work with existing security systems. ------------------------------------------------------------ But with Rogers’ request, optical card technology will now be tested alongside smart cards. "The technology changes so fast it’s in our best interest to test all technologies," says a TSA official close to the ID project. He added that the important thing was getting funding for this project. As of press time, Congress has not passed the TSA budget. ------------------------------------------------------------ Smart cards have already been issued to more than 1 million Defense Department personnel as an ID card, with the total number issued to be more than 4 million. The State Department has also started issuing the microprocessor cards to its employees and the Treasury Department will start issuing them to its 9,000 employees. ------------------------------------------------------------ The INS has used optical cards since 1998 with more than 6.5 million cards issued. The State Department has issued 7 million cards to Mexican residents so they can take short trips over the border. ------------------------------------------------------------ The testing of optical card technology for the transportation workers ID chagrins some in the chip card industry. Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance, doesn’t understand why optical card, or LaserCard, technology is being tested when the project already stated it was going to use smart cards. "There is a niche for LaserCard but in the application for an ID credential there is no advantage and actually significant disadvantages to the technology," he says. ------------------------------------------------------------ The fact that optical cards are a passive technology is one of the disadvantages, Vanderhoof says. For example, a smart card can lock a user out if its personal identification number is not entered properly after a certain number of attempts. With optical card technology the PIN can be encrypted on the card, but the reader has to decrypt the number and other information, and the cardholder cannot be locked out, says Price-Francis. ------------------------------------------------------------ He adds, however, that PINS are insecure, and the optical card technology offers memory space for multiple biometrics, which is more secure. Neville Pattinson, director of business development and technology at SchlumbergerSema, counters that biometric templates have become so small, ranging from 46 bytes for a fingerprint to 512 bytes for iris, that storage space isn’t an issue. ------------------------------------------------------------ Card cost can become an issue as well. Optical cards cost around $3 to $4 each, according to Drexler. The Pentagon is buying smart cards in bulk and paying $6 to $8 each. ------------------------------------------------------------ Cost of the readers is another issue. Smart card readers can be purchased for around $10 for personal computers to the $300 range for access control readers, Vanderhoof says. Optical card readers cost around $2,000 each. ------------------------------------------------------------ Those readers will add up when it comes to securing physical and logical access for an airport with hundreds of doors and computers, says Pattinson. "There needs to be a cost-effective solution for many points to be readily available to authenticate someone," he says. ------------------------------------------------------------ But when it comes to actual physical security of the card itself the optical card does hold an advantage, smart card advocates admit. "The engraving adds to the security of the card and could be used as a security feature when no terminal is available," says Gilles Lisimaque, senior vice president and cofounder of Gemplus Corp. ------------------------------------------------------------ The optical card features a hologram made with a laser that is unalterable and virtually impossible to simulate, says Price-Francis. Also there is no extra cost to this feature, whereas making these types of security changes to other types of cards would require added investment, he says. There have been no successful attempts to counterfeit the laser engraving, says an INS official. ------------------------------------------------------------ While it once appeared that smart cards were a natural fit for the TSA ID program, the industry will have to wait for the results of next year’s pilots to see which technology wins ------------------------------------------------------------ [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |