R.G. Edmonson, Associate Editor | Dec 06, 2011 10:15AM EST
Some 26,000 holders of the Transportation Worker Identification Credential may not be able to use their cards at an electronic reader because of an encoding error, the Transportation Security Administration said.
TSA said a system error caused a federal code number to be incorrectly embedded on the TWIC card’s microchip, and the agency said the error was fixed on April 5. The TSA did not say why it took until November to notify holders.
TWIC holders who received cards before April 5 “could potentially” have it rejected by an electronic reader, the TSA said. Right now only a handful of ports and terminals have electronic readers working.
All told, the TSA has issued some 1.8 million TWICs. The agency has published a list of card serial numbers that may have the encoding problem. The agency will replace cards free of charge. However, if the credential is being used at locations without a reader, the holder does not have to replace it right way.
Further FAQs and instructions for replacement are available here.
Contact R.G. Edmonson at bedmonson@joc.com. Follow him on Twitter @BobinWash.
