Registered Traveler's broken promises
— -- In retrospect, it looks like I made the correct decision when I decided forgo the $199 to renew my Registered Traveler membership before Verified Identity Pass went belly up last week. The original "trusted traveler" program was envisioned to carry a $50 to $75 renewal rate, so when Verified raised their fees substantially late last year, I decided it was no longer worth the extra cost.
With Verified gone, the Registered Traveler program is on life support, available at only three airports — Jacksonville, Louisville, and Reno — operated by Verified's much smaller competitors. While the National Business Travel Association and others would like to see Registered Traveler revived, I believe success is unlikely in the long run.
Registered Traveler is a great idea, but the implementation hasn't worked well in the real world. I spent $99.95 to obtain a Verified "Clear" card and bypass the regular security lines, but I found the Registered Traveler program fulfilled few of its promises. Registered Travelers were asked to submit to fingerprint, eyescan biometric and background checks to bypass airport security lines across the country. Registered Travelers were promised they could then pass into the secure zone without being subject to long security lines or removing their shoes and laptops.
The most glaring problem is just who qualifies to be a trusted traveler? Even if a traveler passes a government background check and has no previous criminal or violent history, that is no accurate predictor of future behavior. At least some 9/11 hijackers were frequent-flier program members. A first-time terrorist could be silently waiting in a sleeper cell for years, or that terrorist could be homegrown, or just some unstable criminal who has decided to extract vengeance on a plane load of innocents. Because of these real possibilities, everyone must be scrutinized at airport security, negating a major advertised benefit of Registered Traveler.
Verified and other Registered Traveler proponents initially promised the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) would obtain new scanning equipment to allow Registered Travelers to wear their shoes and belts and keep their laptops in their carry-on bags as they passed through security. Fraught with technical issues, such scanners never materialized at most airports, and if those new scanners really worked, it is likely TSA would offer that technology to all airline passengers.
