Do I Need a TWIC Card
The Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC card) program is a Transportation Security Administration and U.S. Coast Guard initiative. The TWIC card program provides a tamper-resistant biometric credential to maritime workers requiring unescorted access to secure areas of port facilities, outer continental shelf facilities, and vessels regulated under the Maritime Transportation Security Act, or MTSA, and all U.S. Coast Guard credentialed merchant mariners.
An estimated 750,000 individuals will require a TWIC card. Enrollment and issuance will take place over an 18 month period. To obtain a TWIC card, an individual must provide biographic and biometric information such as fingerprints, sit for a digital photograph and successfully pass a security threat assessment conducted by TSA.
While TWIC cards may be implemented across other transportation modes in the future, the TWIC Card Final Rule, published in the Federal Register January 25, 2007, sets forth regulatory requirements to implement this program in the maritime mode first.
The program’s goals are:
- Positively identify authorized individuals who require unescorted access to secure areas of the nation’s maritime transportation system;
- Determine the eligibility of an individual to be authorized unescorted access to secure areas of the maritime transportation system;
- Enhance security by ensuring that unauthorized individuals are denied unescorted access to secure areas of the nation’s maritime transportation system; and,
- Identify individuals who fail to maintain their eligibility qualifications after being permitted unescorted access to secure areas of the nation’s maritime transportation system and revoke the individual’s permissions
