Following the World Trade Centre attack of 11 September 2001, the US government challenged the IT industry to find solutions to the transportation security issues raised by the terror attacks.
The result has been the collaboration by leading IT vendors and consultants EDS, PwC Consulting, Sun Microsystems and Oracle to develop and produce two advanced biometric and risk measurement solutions.
Dubbed "Known Traveller" and "Secure Employee" the systems combine innovative technologies that may be implemented separately, or assembled into a single end-to-end solution that has been labelled the National Integrated Security Suite.
Drawing on collective government and private sector aviation experience, and technology integration capabilities of these four companies, the suite is said to build on the principles of the fully functional biometric airport security system developed by EDS and deployed at Israel`s Ben Gurion Airport since 1998. To date, this system has processed approximately 1.5 million passengers.
Oracle`s contribution to the system will come in the form of its secure, scalable software solutions backed by its database technology and components of the Oracle E-Business Suite of applications.
Known Traveller is a voluntary passenger registration program that enables government security agencies to establish identity and assess the security risk for registered travellers, thereby facilitating their movement into and through security checkpoint areas.
In terms of the Known Traveller program, passengers register either on the Web or at an airport kiosk by filling out a brief questionnaire and agreeing to a background check.
Once registered, the passenger is directed to an airline affinity club to receive a "smart" travel identification card. After providing proof of identity, biometric information in the form of electronic fingerprint and iris scan data is encrypted on the card. The smart card is then used to authenticate the passenger and provide a risk assessment at a secure Known Traveller checkpoint for registered members.
Secure Employee is an employee registration and authentication program designed to work with existing employee information to identify and assess security risk.
Specifically, Secure Employee uses a "ten-print" scanner to obtain fingerprints required for pre-employment background investigations of airport employees and contractors, authenticating identity and establishing a risk assessment.
The employee`s biometric data is used to manage access to secured areas and computer systems.
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