April 18, 2011 - On Thursday Margaret Gilligan, Associate Administrator for aviation safety at the Federal Aviation Administration spoke before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on the inclusion of biometric identifiers on pilots licenses. Her statement is as follows. Chairman Mica, Congressman Rahall, Members of the Committee:  

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today on the issue of embedding biometric data on pilot certificates. I know that this issue has been of significant interest to Chairman Mica, as I have had several meetings with him on this topic. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has received statutory direction on pilot certificates in the past as their potential use by other agencies was identified. 

After the tragic events of September 11, 2001, with aviation playing such a central role in the disaster, additional uses for pilot certificates were identified. As mentioned above, the requirement that pilots carry a government issued photo I.D. assumed that each FAA inspector who asked for pilot credentials could confirm the person about to fly was qualified and competent. In addition, if a pilot leased an aircraft, the fixed base operator could confirm both the pilot?s identity and his other qualifications.   

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA) imposed additional requirements on the physical license, including that it be tamper resistant and include a photograph and/or biometric identifier of the pilot.  The certificates were also required to be capable of accommodating a biometric identifier, such as a digital photo or fingerprint, or any other unique identifier FAA deemed necessary. 

FAA issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in November 2010 that proposed to require that all pilots, including student pilots, possess the new certificates with a digital photo, widely acknowledged as a biometric identifier. The comment period for this rulemaking closed in February of this year. 

We are currently working to finalize this rulemaking within a year.  Due to the broad scope and economic impact of the rule, the FAA proposed to phase-in the requirement over a five-year period. However, FAA expects that most airline pilots and flight instructors will have the new certificate within two years and that most other active pilots will have the new certificate within three years of the issuance of the final rule. 

FAA recognizes this timeframe is not consistent with IRTPA direction, which called for FAA to begin issuing the modified certificates in 2005.  The FAA NPRM was crafted in a way to ensure compliance with IRPTA in the most cost effective an efficient manner, and we are in the process of carefully considering comments related to this NPRM to make sure that the goals of IRPTA are met in the final rule.   

With respect to biometric standards, the FAA understood that other government agencies, including the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) developed those standards The FAA has been, and continues to be hopeful not to duplicate, interfere, or supersede efforts either with respect to standards or implementation. 

We all support the goal of enhancing aviation security and maximizing resources in order to achieve a single, universal security credential incorporating biometric data that meets a common standard. To the extent that it is practical and/or feasible, we will continue to consider how this security credential could interface with existing safety credentials.  In addition, we continue to work with TSA on a proposal to establish a universal ID for the transportation workforce.