As IBM's Fastgate airport clearance system wasn't a hit in Bermuda because of problems with the electronics, the Department of Immigration could be checking out a new hands-on method of clearing frequent flyers through the gate quickly.

The new system, now being tested in the US, allows business travellers to press a hand to a computer screen, get their bone structure analysed, and get cleared automatically. About 45,000 travellers currently are using the Immigration and Naturalization Service Passenger Accelerated Service System card, or INSPASS.

A traveller using the system runs a card through a machine in the airport and places a hand in a "hand geometry reader''. The reader compares the live scan of the passenger's bone structure in the hand to an image taken when the traveller applied for the pass. The system is currently processing about 20,000 automated admissions into the US a month.

Residents of the United States, Canada, Bermuda and the 29 countries participating in the Visa Waiver Pilot Programme are eligible to apply for the pass. Applicants must travel to the United States on business at least three times a year.

Since Bermuda residents clear US immigration here on the Island an application won't do much good for now unless they are flying in to the US from another country, such as the UK, Canada, or places in the Caribbean. Airports at Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, New Jersey; John F. Kennedy in New York, San Francisco and Dulles currently provide the INSPASS service, as well as the US pre-clearance sites at Vancouver and Toronto in Canada.

According to experts the biometric image of the hand's bone structure and configuration is an extremely reliable way of determining the identity of a person -- much more so than the picture in a passport.

The one that got away: Remember TradeCard Inc.? TradeCard was the company that started up in Bermuda to pioneer an electronic means of allowing small businesses to complete entire international trade transactions through a secure electronic network without the use of expensive letters of credit.

However, the business was slow and the company pulled up stakes this year and emigrated to the US when it was bought out. The loss was a big blow to Bermuda's aspirations at becoming a electronic commerce centre. Now TradeCard seems to be thriving through recent agreements with partners in the Hong Kong market.

TradeCard is now promising secure trade arrangements drafted and settled via the Internet that could eliminate letters of credit and erase one-fifth of banks' profits. The US company last month entered into an agreement with Tradelink Electronic Commerce Ltd in Hong Kong and Information Technology Pioneer International Inc in Taiwan. The term in the e-commerce world is disintermediation -- the cutting out of the middleman, in this case the banks.

The process of disintermediation also is occurring in the travel, auto sales and insurance sector.

TradeCard was founded in 1994 in Bermuda by the World Trade Association, is a business-to-business e-commerce transaction processing company focused specifically on cross-border trade. The company spent millions developing an automated private system for the entire process, including trade finance, pre-export finance, inspection services, and on-line insurance, reducing costs from several thousands per transaction to just $150 a trade.

But 1994 was when the Internet was beginning to launch itself into the public consciousness. Many traders were perhaps reluctant to make the initial expense of investing in the software necessary to run on the private system. Why do that when the Internet was already basically free and getting more secure? After the lack of interest TradeCard needed an infusion of money, hence the need for venture capitalists and the need to refocus the company, which had a good idea but placed its bets, in hindsight, on the wrong tools.

Tradelink, which is 44-percent owned by the Hong Kong government, provides electronic services on government trade applications, including customs declarations. It is now working to offer its 41,000 trader-members access to TradeCard's services by the second half of 2000.

The Taiwan partnership is projected to connect 50,000 traders to the TradeCard system over the next three to five years. TradeCard aims to announce partnerships with government-supported firms in Singapore and South Korea in January.

Perhaps, TradeCard is a good lesson in the difficulties in operating from Bermuda. E-commerce experts need to evaluate what motivated the company's backers to pull out of the Island in a bid to ensure that such an exodus doesn't occur again. The move to the US also underlines the fact that Bermuda cannot rely only on its low tax environment to attract high-tech companies.

Finally the Bermuda Government is getting around to getting local business in line with the many abuses perpetuated on the consumer in the marketplace with the Consumer Protection Act 1999.

Consumers should also be aware of the many abuses on the Internet. The Consumer Federation of America has warned about the enormous amounts of misleading marketing on many leading websites. In its first study of consumer information on the Internet, the CFA discovered what it labelled as five ''significant consumer problems'', including searches dominated by paid advertising.

The study warned that searches via many websites were influenced by paid advertisers who could purchase preferred positions in the searching process.

Thus if you go to a site which claims to search for the best price for a good on the Web, the eventual choices you're offered may not be as objective as you think. An advertiser could have paid the search site to place itself on the top of the list for that particular good. The CFA found that some sites offered different prices for the same item, depending on how shoppers entered the site. Other web searches omitted key brands including Sony, Mitsubishi and Yamaha.

The recommendation is to use three or more Internet search engines to get the best prices.

Tech Tattle deals with topics relating to technology. Contact Ahmed at ahmedelamin y hotmail.com or (01133) 467012599.