Back in March 2007, we wrote about our initial experience with Clear, the security clearance program geared towards frequent travelers rolling out across several US airports.
The premise is simple: users submit to a basic TSA background screening, and after paying the annual fee, they receive a card that allows them to use special “fast” lanes at participating airports.
In the earliest stages, there were some growing pains related to the enrollment and vetting process, as well as the actual airport experience.
In the past year or so, we’ve used the service several times and can report that things have improved considerably.
Over the past month, we used Clear at JFK’s Terminal 4 and SFO’s international terminal. In both locations, the staff were extremely courteous, helping carry bags and ushering us quickly through the biometric scan and to the front of the security queue.
At JFK during the 5PM rush hour, we clocked about 2 minutes getting through a security line that would have otherwise taken 20. Same goes for SFO.
Clear is currently rolling out many more US airports - a complete list is available here.
Thanks for the update!
August 5th, 2008 at 8:07 am
Whoopsie! Clear’s lost a laptop with potential customer data from 33,000 people, and, inexplicably, it was unencrypted: “In a written statement, Verified Identity Pass said most people affected were customers who had signed up online for the Clear program but who had not yet completed their enrollments in person. A “small number” of members who were in the process of re-enrolling were also affected.”
Leave it to a firm selling security to leave things unsecured.
Apparently this isn’t a terrible breach, but it sure is boneheaded. I wonder how much all those background checks and retina scans or whatever “biometric information” they collect would go for on the black market, had a full customer database been compromised…
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/orl-clear0508aug05,0,4458701.story
August 5th, 2008 at 2:44 pm