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In 2002, in response to the dramatic increase in background checking requirements within Aviation, the American Association of Airport Executives created the Transportation Security Clearinghouse (TSC). Working closely with the Department of Homeland Security, the TSC’s goal was to facilitate FBI Criminal History Record Checks (CHRC) and TSA Security Threat Assessments (STAs) for airport workers including Federal Transportation Security Officers and Air Marshals, Alien Flight School participants and general aviation crews.

As the TSC grew in size, the AAAE realized that they needed a technology partner experienced in biometrics and identity management and in the implementation and management of nationally scoped identity programs.   After a significant due diligence exercise, the AAAE selected Daon Trusted Identity Services (DTIS) to provide critical infrastructure and professional services in support of the TSC. The choice, by a 25 airport‐member Board of Directors, was based on the global reputation of Daon’s open‐standards and proven identity management and credentialing platform combined with a deep bench of technology experts with decades of government system experience.  Our knowledge of the regulatory environment around biometrics and human identity and its unwavering commitment to protecting the privacy of citizen’s data were major factors in the AAAE decision.

Today, DTIS  provides hosted, network based services for biometric identity management, including enrollment, FBI Criminal History Record Checks, 3rd party background checking, secure biometric and biographic information storage and card issuance/lifecycle management.  This modular set of services uses an existing and secure infrastructure to help mitigate risk and control costs while providing security, scalability and future proofing.  We have become the leading trusted third party ensuring the protection and verification of identities in the public and private sectors.  Bringing together government and public record vetting services, ensuring regulatory compliance and establishing trust for employees, DTIS has been successful in leveraging its experience with government, industry and end user communities to build an interoperable platform that can be tailored to meet specific program or service needs.

Distributed Credentialing and Identity Management Services

In creating a system to check the backgrounds of every active airport employee, we had to determine how to centralize processes for an expansive network of distinct transportation entities, all having their own unique processes and challenges.  We worked closely with stakeholders, finding commonalities in the legacy systems, and building an interface that would work with all of the systems, while minimizing the impact to existing operations.  In so doing, we were successful in linking 450 commercial service airports and air carriers together on a common system to provide a central point of submission, quality assurance, financial services, records tracking, and results retrieval, thereby creating the first high-speed, secure network for fingerprint transmissions to the TSA, certified by the FBI and TSA.  Today’s aviation customers include all airport workers, TSA Contractors, Armed Security Officers, Federal Flight Deck Officers, Federal Transportation Security Officers, Federal Air Marshalls, Alien Flight School participants, and General Aviation Crews. 

Based on a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and proven in countless customer engagements, the DTIS credentialing platform offers a streamlined, cost effective, consistent and proven approach for collecting and managing biometric and biographic data, while creating a positive experience for our aviation customer based on speed, efficiency and simplicity.  Once the data has been received in our secure operations center, our Identity Data Management services allows us to provide national criminal history background checking services, and the ability to use the data collected to search other national and/or local data bases to verify citizenship, immigration status, employment status, educational background, professional licenses, etc.  Our secure data storage services ensure that data can be retrieved in accordance with the needs and requirements of various programs to verify an individual’s identity.  Once the data has been stored in our secure operations center, our Identity Credentialing services provide for the creation and activation of physical and logical access devices including PIV cards, and manages the alert process regarding revoked credentials. 

Today, Daon Trusted Identity Services operates the nation’s largest proven and trusted civilian clearinghouse for fingerprint, biometric and biographic processing.  Created to provide cost effective and expedient background checking services, DTIS provides biometric background checking for every active airport employee.  To date, we have facilitated more than 4.0M biometrically based and 1.8M biographical background checks, and processed in excess of $100M in electronic funds transfers.   In addition to achieving an industry low error rate for fingerprint transmissions to the FBI of <2% and a customer satisfaction rating of 96%, we have enabled the AAAE and the aviation community to:

• Reduce the average response for aviation worker background checks from days to minutes
• Significantly reduce the cost per background check