It’s a simple scanner than can keep beer away from minors and terrorists
off planes.
The same device that can catch a teenager’s fake ID could have kept the man who tried to detonate a car bomb in Times Square from boarding the plane on which he nearly escaped in May.
Defense ID is a hand-held scanner that reads magnetic strips, barcodes and special text on most forms of identification, including driver’s licenses, passports and military IDs. The system immediately compares the data to 160 “bad guy” databases, including the no-fly list that Faisal Shahzad’s name had been on when he got through all levels of security at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport.
About 80 secure federal locations, mostly military bases, already use Defense ID. It recently caught a group of gang members posing as movers trying to sneak onto Quantico Marine Corps Base, Va., said Nelson Ludlow, CEO of Intellicheck Mobilisa Inc., which manufactures Defense ID in Port Townsend, Wash.
The scanner is attracting the attention of retailers who can use it to enter customer information into credit card applications on the spot. However, the future of Defense ID lies at the border and in the airport, Ludlow said.
“Homeland security is the future of Defense ID,” Ludlow said. “After the underwear bomber, [the Transportation Security Administration] bought a few of our devices.” TSA is testing the technology, along with other products, Ludlow said.
Companies often make software for smart cards, such as employee badges, which include a computer memory chip.
“Terrorists aren’t carrying smart cards,” he said. “People carry licenses — more than 200 million in North America. We make smart software for dumb cards.”
Electronic ID systems may become much more commonplace, Ludlow said, citing a recent Zogby poll that found 90 percent of traveling Americans were in favor of having their IDs scanned at TSA checkpoints.