Fortifying security within

As Tampa International investigates technology to verify employee identity, officials ask the FAA to include it in a pilot project.

By JEAN HELLER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published December 24, 2001

TAMPA -- As the Federal Aviation Administration wrestles with new ways to make airports more secure for the traveling public, Tampa International Airport is seeking to make the facility safer from the inside.

Even before Sept. 11, TIA officials had decided to upgrade their internal security system, which is 10 years old and falling into disrepair. After Sept. 11, the question became how high a level of security to reach for.

Nothing less than state-of-the-art, says Louis Miller, executive director of the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority.

On Nov. 26, he wrote to Jane Garvey, administrator of the FAA, asking that TIA be included among 20 airports that will be chosen to test biometric verification procedures for employees. This could include fingerprint, thumbprint, palm print or retinal scan backup to the access cards.

"Even if we aren't included in the project, we'll go to one of these systems," Miller said. "I'd like to get into the FAA program to get some funding help, and also to get the FAA's expertise on which is the best technology. But we'll do it one way or another."

About 6,000 people who work at the airport, from baggage handlers to skycaps to administrative personnel, now use identification badges coded for dozens of levels of access to the airport's most secure recesses.

When a badge is swiped by a card reader, the machine deciphers a chip imbedded in the card and knows whether the bearer is authorized for entry.

Because he runs the place, Miller, for example, can go just about anywhere, from super-secure baggage handling areas on the ground level of the main terminal to the airsides and into the guts of the police department.

Others might have access to one or two places where they must go to do their jobs, but not everywhere. A few have no access because there is no need for them to enter secure areas to perform their duties.

It is a good system, but not foolproof, Miller says.

"The chip inside my badge says I can enter a secure area, but what if it isn't me holding the badge?" he said. "It's the badge that has entree, not the person, and that isn't how it should be."

The biometric verification systems Miller is interested in also rely on chips imbedded in ID cards. A swipe by the reader tells the computer whether the bearer has been approved for access. But then the bearer is checked to make sure he or she matches the ID on the card.

"You press your finger or your thumb or your palm against a pad, and it matches the print to another chip inside your card," Miller said. "A retinal scan uses light to read your eyes. It's another level of security."

Discussions with one potential vendor of fingerprint technology raised questions recently. Dr. Linda McClintock-Greco, a consultant for Orlando-based Leapfrog Smart Products and wife of Tampa Mayor Dick Greco, brokered a meeting between company executives and Miller.

Dick Greco sits on the aviation authority board that would need to approve the purchase of security technology. Miller said that if TIA were to consider Leapfrog, Greco would have to abstain from that vote.

The new Aviation and Transportation Security Act provides for the 20-airport pilot program, but it probably won't be ready to start when TIA needs it, according to the FAA.

"We're still evaluating a variety of technologies," said FAA spokesman Hank Price. "We don't have a timetable for the pilot project, but it's months away."

TIA needs to make a decision next month. The new Airside E, scheduled to open in October of next year, is wired to use the new technologies, and the cards and reading devices have to be ordered in January, Miller told Garvey.

If TIA does not become part of the pilot project, officials could get some technology guidance from test projects that began before Sept. 11. Fingerprinting biometrics is being tested at Chicago O'Hare International Airport for cargo truck drivers. And at Charlotte/Douglas International, the airport conducted a pilot program with US Airways using iris recognition technology to verify the identification of employees accessing secure areas.

"We're trying to deal with a wide range of security issues," Price said. "We want to improve security around airport perimeters. We're hoping to test and evaluate new technology for tailgate control (to prevent unauthorized people from sneaking into secure areas by trailing closely behind someone who is authorized), as well as biometrics."

Among the criteria for airports chosen for the pilot project will be how well-equipped they are to get up and running with the new techniques, Price added, a point in favor of TIA.

Meanwhile, Miller said, the old system is still pretty sophisticated.

"We have 300 or 400 doors in the airport with various levels of security," he said. "We can program each card to open specific doors and not to open others. If a card is lost or stolen, we can have it deactivated within 10 seconds of receiving notice."

Recently, an employee of Argenbright Security, the private firm that handles shuttle lobby security and the X-ray machines and metal detectors at Airside D, left the job and took her badge with her. She told her story to a local television station, raising questions about TIA security.

Miller contends it was never a problem. "As soon as Argenbright notified us that she had left, we deactivated her badge," Miller said. "It became no more than a souvenir. However, the company will be fined for neglecting to get it back."

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