By Marisa Torrieri, Contributing Editor

International Biometric Association is meeting with the Transportation Security Administration in the hopes of convincing the federal agency to include contactless readers as part of its new credentialing and security system for ports and maritime workers.

Smart cards containing the contactless technology were tested during a yearlong “Prototype Phase” of the Transportation Worker Identification Credentials (TWIC) initiative. IBIA believes that the test was a success and proved that the contactless reader was the right way to go. If TSA specifies a new reader approach that wasn’t tested, such as using contact readers, then the reader portion of prototype test would have been an effort that International Biometric Industry Association Chairman Walter Hamilton calls a waste of time, money, and resources.