Alan Black’s course paper for Technology in Homeland Security addressed potential insider threats to airports and how a simple technological shift could mitigate those threats.  Black, who is vice president and public safety director at Dallas Fort Worth International (DFWI) Airport Department of Public Safety, wrote “A Case Study for New Access Control Technology.” The paper addresses vulnerability in airport security – the access badges used by employees at airports and the businesses operating within them. There are 35,000 employees at the airport who work for the airlines, the airport and the private businesses operating at airport grounds and facilities.   1)     Black’s paper begins with a summary of federal requirements for employee identification badges, one of which is an expiration date on the badges of no more than two years.   Such badges are issued after background checks and offer varied levels of access to different parts of the airport. However, as they are photo identification badges, they can be misused by others for whom the badge was not issued, which is a security issue. And, federal rules require periodic audits to account for issued badges and should 5 percent be unaccounted for, all workers have to get new badges, which is a cost issue as the badges cost about $50 each.   To address security and costs, the DFWI Airport considered a system that tightly controls the expiration date of the badge and combines photo identification with biometric verification. These new badges have to be re-validated more frequently, via self-service machines. They also feature an obscured photo. When the employee’s badge and hand geography are scanned and approved, their photo appears on what was the obscured portion of the badge. When a fraudulent badge is detected, the person is denied entry and the photo portion of the badge remains obscured.                                                                                                                                        2)     The DFWI Airport was on the cusp of a pilot project that would have utilized a new access badge as described in Black’s paper. The pilot would have begun on a small scale with about 40 or so employees using the test badges.   However, the vendor for the project was unable to fix a glitch in the design as the computer chips embedded in the card require the paper stock to be of a certain thickness. This delayed the plan.   3)     While that pilot project was on hiatus, the concept outlined in Black’s paper is alive and well. Black has had discussions with a few other vendors who are interested in developing a badge that is similar.   “The concept is still alive,” Black said. “Eventually somebody is going to solve the problem. It’s matter of taking it from the concept to realizing the application.”