The Registered Traveler Program And Worrying About When Good People Go Bad

I had an op-ed in The Mercury News this last Sunday entitled "Risks unknown for ‘registered traveler’ participants."

I travel a lot. So learning the little nuances of each airport I frequent comes in very handy. I have been able to pull off little stunts like driving five miles, parking my car, getting my boarding pass at a kiosk, clearing security and getting to my gate in 17 minutes. Of course, this takes a lot of luck, too. One long line and poof … you miss a flight especially when not allowing more than 45 minutes between airport arrival and the plane’s departure

As I mentioned in my op-ed, I planned on taking the plunge and therefore enrolled in the Clear Registered Traveler program yesterday. Handing over my biometrics and subjecting myself to a background check will be well worth shorter airport lines, especially if this program turns up at airports I actually frequent.

Before I made this leap, for once I read the Privacy Policy. It seems they have done a decent job communicating their intentions and protections. Obviously if you have an outstanding criminal warrant, this would not be a good program for you!

When I think about this program and programs like this – while there is some additional risk introduced anytime one reveals more of his/her personal information – the other [big] risk is what happens when a good guy who gets the "Approved Security Threat Assessment" stamp from the Transportation Security Administration decides to become a bad guy later.

When good guys go bad (the "insider threat") is a nasty problem. And while this program has wisely opted for a perpetual credentialing process, something I strongly advocate, detecting the lone gunman scenario, where the bad guy works alone, is a very hard problem. I hope the perpetual credentialing program they have in place is topnotch.

Nonetheless, I’m eager to have as many airport shortcuts as I can get my hands on!

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Comments on the TSA No-Fly and Selectee Watch List Process

Comments

[Stephanie Heuer]

Hi jeff;
I too signed up for this Clear service this week. Anything to move things along, but I did feel I went onto some very large international database. I think this will become more and more common and eventually we will have inserted in us at birth a chip with all our data, dna info etc. The cyborg concept of Donna Harroway is not that far fetched. Wish more airports were online though, there is only a handful with this service.

[Stephanie Heuer]

Hi jeff;
I too signed up for this Clear service this week. Anything to move things along, but I did feel I went onto some very large international database. I think this will become more and more common and eventually we will have inserted in us at birth a chip with all our data, dna info etc. The cyborg concept of Donna Harroway is not that far fetched. Wish more airports were online though, there is only a handful with this service.

[Jim Harper]

A thing I like about Clear is that their privacy policy states they do not collect data about your use of their system. It's housed on their system at the airport for 24 hours (for use if something goes wrong) and then destroyed. That's a neat anti-surveillance feature: It's proves to the TSA that you're in RT, but it doesn't collect info about your travels or tell the TSA who you are!

[R.Coon]

I registered as soon as I noticed the "Clear" lanes here in Indianapolis. It helped the second time I used it, when bad weather on the east coast caused very long check in times at the ticket counters. I was able to get through security in under 5 minutes, and got to the gate as boarding started for my flight. Considering the length of the security line, I might have missed my flight.

Yes, $100 a year seems like a lot, but that works out to just over $8 a month. Considering how often I travel it's worth every penny.

JM2C