The first of approximately 25,000 Port of Baltimore workers have begun enrolling in the Transportation Security Administration?s Transportation Workers Identification Card program. The process expected to take at least several months.
Enrollment in the program began last Wednesday, with about 100 port workers applying for cards that day, said Leslie Holoweiko, spokeswoman for Lockheed Martin, which has contracted with the TSA for the program nationwide.
Holoweiko said it was unclear how long enrolling all 25,000 workers would take.
“We?ll be in Baltimore for quite some time,” she said. “We want to make sure port workers have enough time to get their ID and activate their ID before the enforcement period begins.”
The biometric cards include an employee?s fingerprint and other data, and can be read by a card-swipe scanner or from a short distance by a card reader, according to Lauren Wolf, spokeswoman for the TSA.
