Airlines lack the information technology infrastructure needed to comply with a Homeland Security Department proposal that would put carriers in charge of collecting biometric information from most foreign travelers when they leave the United States, according to lobbying groups representing that industry.
Ken Dunlap, the International Air Transport Association’s director of security for North America, said that the DHS’ proposed rule that would place the airlines in charge of collecting certain travelers fingerprints as they leave the country “completely ignores the existing IT infrastructure of the industry.” He also said airlines did not have the bandwidth to transmit even the low-resolution fingerprints and that IT infrastructure upgrades could take seven months with some airlines having to make significant changes.
Dunlap, whose association represents 230 airlines from around the world, made the comments today at a public hearing on DHS’ proposed plan for meeting a congressional mandate that requires DHS to expand the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT).
A law requires the department to also collect biometric information from non-immigrant travelers as they leave the country. DHS has already been collecting biometric data from such travelers when they arrive in the United States.
DHS would use the biometric data collected by the airlines to create an exit record and verify the identity of the traveler against entry data stored in DHS’ Automated Biometric Identification System and the Arrival and Departure Information System. The airlines would send the biometric data in a message formatted in Extensible Markup Language (XML) which would contain a biometric image along with biographic data such as the person's first and last names, date of birth, and the date and time the fingerprints were taken.
The airline industry has opposed the department’s proposal to put the carriers in charge of the process even before the proposed rule was released April 22.
Dunlap said airlines data networks send about 100 kilobytes of data to DHS per flight, but if biometrics were required that number would jump from 34 megabytes for low resolution fingerprints or to 128 megabytes for high resolution of data sent per flight. None of the airlines’ data networks could handle that, he said. He also said there is no XML standard for the industry.
Digg
De.licio.us
Slashdot
Technorati
