Kestranek named finalist in MeriTalk contest
by Stephanie Koons, IST staff writer
Dan Kestranek, a Ph.D. student in Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology, thinks that the current procedure to obtain passports is flawed and outdated. He was recently recognized by an online networking community for his proposal to create a “virtual passport” system that he thinks would save time, money and resources.
Kestranek was a finalist in the MeriTalk Merit Awards contest, which “challenged the world to come forth with ideas on how to use IT to improve the quality of government—with a $50,000 prize for smart, new thinking.” While he didn’t win the grand prize, he won first place in the “citizen engagement” category for his proposal to create a secure U.S. mobile application that allows citizens to sign in temporarily and download passport data via near-field communications (NFC).
MeriTalk is an online community that combines professional networking and thought leadership to drive community dialogue on government information technology. The Merit Award winners were announced recently at the Federal Executive Summit that was held in Washington, D.C.
With the smartphone application that Kestranek proposes, all of a citizen’s private information would be stored in a secure government-operated “cloud.” To access it, he or she could use biometrics (unique signatures of one’s physical body) like scanning a fingerprint with the phone’s camera as the key. The user’s information would then be temporarily downloaded to his or her phone and could then be transferred to the proper channels via near-field communications, Kestranek wrote in an e-mail. NFC is a “new technology just starting to appear in smartphones that lets data transfer between the phone and an NFC reader wirelessly, albeit at a very short range (a few centimeters).”
Kestranek came up with the idea for the mobile phone application, he wrote, after renewing his passport to visit Sweden this fall for a conference. While the trip was canceled due to Hurricane Irene, he was struck by inspiration.
“I was just kind of annoyed by the very arcane process of getting a passport and the overall passport system, so I looked for a digital solution to bring it into our modern times,” he said.
Kestranek said that he sees the current passport system to be arcane in the process that citizens go through to get first-time passports –i.e. going to the post office for an application, filling out paperwork and sometimes waiting up to a month or two to get the passport.
“With digital passports, the process can be streamlined and hopefully have a much faster turnaround,” he said.
The main advantage of the mobile application, Kestranek said, would be that people would not have to worry about losing their passports. Personal information would be deleted after use, so it would not be lost if someone lost his or her phone. There would also be cost reduction in the form of materials, personnel and costs associated with lost passports.
“Also, if a person loses his passport, he or she is at risk for identity theft,” Kestranek said. “That is just part of the climate that we live in.”
Despite the potential advantages of the passport mobile application, he added, it would not be an easy system to implement.
“The creation and management of a secure government cloud service is an amazing feat on its own,” Kestranek said. “I don't have the answer to how to manage that.”
In addition, he said, users would need a smartphone with near-field communications or a similar communications system. Another challenge would be installing NFC readers in all countries and locations where travelers would need to use their passports.
“(The system) would take a lot of planning, engineering, money and cooperation (among nations) to implement,” Kestranek said. “Let's just say that I would not want to be one of the engineers hired to build this system!”
