FASTGATE developments . . . (IBM's biometric immigration system) . . .
According to the Irish Times of January 9, IBM has concluded its FASTGATE testing in Bermuda, and apparently they are ready to move on to other airports.
If you don't recall, IBM has been working up a commercial alternative to the INS' INSPASS palm geometry/smart card check for international frequent flyers. (INSPASS is not standing still, either: travellers from the US, Canada and Bermuda are already eligible for enrollment, and the US has a preliminary agreement with the immigration officials in Canada, Germany, Netherlands and Britain to have compatible systems.)
Nevertheless, the IBM system is less clunky, because it is set up to work with any commercial magnetic stripe card, such as ATM cards, credit cards, frequent flyer cards, telephone cards, etc. The traveler registers the commercial card with the immigration officials and has a quick enrollment. Then, whenever the traveller wants to pass through customs on the card, it is cross-checked with the bio-ID handprint via a central, global IBM data base made locally available at that airport. IBM is ready to expand to airports in Honolulu, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and Heathrow (London).
IBM goal is to get 20 million travellers enrolled and receive payment from the card issuers on a per click basis . It would be up to the card issuers, who can advertise this feature to their customer base, to determine how or if to bill the user. IBM is looking at tens, if not hundreds, of millions of paid transactions per year. I hope IDX is connected to this project through their palm printer.
Next item, not quite as dramatic: The January 7 Montreal Gazette reports that a Canadian national commission has recommended to the government that it use biometrically-coded identity cards for its up to 220,000 annual refugee applicants. There is presently a lot of fraud in this program.
David
PS -- Brad, you scooped me on the bootup security release. It's all happening very quickly, but not very quietly if you're watching it. |
