MUST READ: Houston/Galveston AMSC Facility Security Work Group TWIC Reader Task Group (TRTG) Meeting Minutes for March 31.

I was contacted by Don Bruce of the Houston/Galveston AMSC. He sent me the transcript of the AMSC Facility Security Work Group TWIC Reader Task Group (TRTG) meeting minutes for March 31. The subject of the meeting was a TSA TWIC Program Office presentation. The Facility Security Work Group is a subgroup of the AMSC, tasked with focusing on all aspects of facility security, monitoring pending regulatory requirements; identifying security-related issues; identifying best practices and mutually agreeable solutions; communicating lessons learned and/or recommendations, and implementing outreach.

In his email to me, Mr. Bruce describes the meeting minutes as the most forthcoming explanation of the current status of the TWIC Pilot Test, TWIC Reader Rule, TWIC ICE List, TWIC Lessons Learned, TWIC Alternate Biometric Process, etc. that exists. I agree wholeheartedly. The text is available at http://www.fswg.org/files/DDF/4%20TRTG%20Meeting%20Minutes%20%203-31-11%20%20%28TSA-Transcript%29.pdf

Major contributors to this meeting were Don Bruce, Chairman of two AMSC Facility Security Work Group (FSWG) Subcommittees, the Access and Regulatory Subcommittees; Walter Hamilton, senior consultant for Identification Technology Partners out of Gaithersburg, Maryland. This company is the TWIC contractor for TSA TWIC program office. He is also chairman and president of the International Biometrics and Identification Association (IBIA) which is a nonprofit trade organization based in Washington, DC; John Martin of JTAC Consulting, who was employed by BearingPoint as Operations Manager of the TWIC program and was responsible for all of the initial TWIC pilot deployments and the Independent Verification & Validation (IV &V) testing; John Schwartz, Program Manager for the TWIC program for TSA; Michael Plostock, TWIC Pilot and ICE (Initial Capability Evaluation) List Project Manager; and Don Bruce

If you are affected by the TWIC program, or affected by MTSA regulations, you need to read these meeting minutes. The transcript has been annotated/highlighted by topics, which is very helpful. Among the many, many useful bits of information in these notes is a reinforcement of the news on PIN usage: neither TSA nor the USCG will be requiring PIN usage. p. 12.

This working group has also developed a TWIC Access Control Questionnaire. From this questionnaire, they are developing a Lessons Learned report that should be published shortly. p. 15. Concerning alternate technologies to fingerprints for verifying identity, “The FIPS 201 standard is being modified to incorporate Iris technology as an alternative biometric to fingerprint which can also be stored on the chip in addition to fingerprint templates or in lieu of fingerprint templates in the event that an individual can’t present a high enough quality fingerprint image. “ Walter Hamilton, p. 15.

Congratulations to this active AMSC working group, for furnishing this high-quality information in an extremely readable format. These meeting minutes are just one example of the excellent work product of this committee. The site at http://www.fswg.org is a wealth of information for the MTSA community in general.