Easy Tracking of Visitors

Recently the New York Times reported that after more then 8 years since 9/11 we still have no way to track visitors to our country. This is a great example of government incompetence and a lack of imagination. There is a relatively simple solution that would be cost effective and not take years to implement. All it takes is political will to make it happen.

This solution takes advantage of the thousands of ATM machines already installed throughout the country.

1) When people enter the country they are processed through a card creation station. In this process their passport is scanned, their picture is taken and a plastic "visitor card" is created that has their picture, an ID number, the date by which they must exit the country and how often they are required to "check in". (Weekly, Monthly, etc). This card would have identical physical properties to all ATM cards in existence today. The check in frequency would be based on the visitor's risk profile.

2) To check in one would simple go to any ATM and insert their card. The ATM machine would recognize that the card is foreign visitor card and would not prompt for a pin. The ATM would simply snap a picture as most do today and would display a "Thank you" and eject the card. In the background the ATM would transmit the picture, card data and the ATM location to the INS computer systems.

3) When the visitor exits the country they pass through an ATM like card reader that keeps the card and closes out the visit. And, as appropriate, flags authorities that someone who has violated their visitor terms has now tried to exit. For people who frequently come and go the card would be permanent and not kept.

With this information the INS computers can easily monitor all visitors to determine who has overstayed their limit, who has not checked in per the required frequency, (Weekly or Monthly), and where have they traveled in the country. And with today's face recognition software the facial images could be compared to catch card usage fraud.

The key changes to make this happen:

1) Develop the card creation process. Software and hardware is simple. Key challenge is to have enough stations to quickly process people. Road borders from Canada and Mexico are clearly a major challenge along with many airports who might not have the physical space to put in enough machines. However, people who come and go across the border could be given a permanent card so card creation is a one time event.The key is to make the process very quick so the immigration agent could execute the process in about as much time as they take today. And in some cases people could get their card at the origin airport.

2) The programming changes for the ATM machines is not difficult but would of course elicit howls from the banking industry who would claim it is a gigantic task that will take years and millions of dollars. This would have to be pushed and there is no reason why it could not be implemented within one year.

3) The largest challenge is what to do with the mountain of data showing violations of the visitor's entry terms. But no matter how one collects the data it will produce the same result. Thousands of visitors will be in violation of visitor terms and will have to be dealt with in some manner. But having a clear record of all check in locations, dates and times would greatly enhance the ability to find the person.