RFID Powers Border Crossing Program

Take a look around the next time you’re sitting in your car, waiting in line to cross the U.S.-Canadian border. While you’re fiddling with your radio dials, leafing through a magazine or playing your Gameboy, cars in the NEXUS lane next to you likely are proceeding rapidly across the border.

Become a member of the NEXUS program, and you too could find yourself in the fast lane.

NEXUS was developed jointly by the U.S. and Canada to expedite border crossings by low risk travelers. “We have thousands of low risk travelers who cross the border frequently," said Tom Campbell, NEXUS program manager for the new U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “We know them. They know us."

After considering a number of possibilities, U.S. immigration officials, which now are part of the new Homeland Security department, selected a system that relies on a backbone of Intermec Intellitag® radio frequency identification, a technology known as RFID. First piloted at a small port in Port Huron, Michigan, the system now is being rolled out to every major trade corridor across the countries’ mutual border. NEXUS currently is operational in the Pacific Northwest, Detroit, Mich., and Buffalo, New York.