Secretary Michael Chertoff says the use of Pass cards, as part of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, will be ready to go by next summer.

But at least one industry expert tells Government Computer News this week that DHS running out of time to test and deploy a new technology solution in the proposed passport-alternative identification card by June – or even August – 2008.

Chertoff previously stated that RFID tests didn’t go so well February 2007 – apparentely, too many readers and poor reader placements were resulting in RFID tags being scanned more than once in those tests, industry sources said, GCN reports.