Future security checkpoints could include biometric-enabled mechanisms for travelers as well as integrated technology solutions for screening people, Peter Neffenger, the new administrator of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), said on Wednesday.
“I think it’s possible that an individual’s biometric identity could effectively become the boarding pass of the future, linked to intelligent systems and requiring passage through an integrated capability designed to detect metallic and non-metallic based threats,” Neffenger told the House Homeland Security Committee in his debut testimony as head of TSA. He said “I see a future where advanced capabilities can transform the experience while preserving risk-based security as a central feature,” adding that “This future can be realized with a suitable strategic approach.”
Neffenger, who has been on the job for four weeks, said that his highest immediate priority is focusing on the results of covert testing done by the Department of Homeland Security inspector general (IG) that showed a 96 percent failure rate in passenger screening. The report by the IG is classified but prior to elements of it being leaked, the IG told a House oversight panel that covert testing involving Advanced Imaging Technology machines, also called AIT, raised questions whether they are effective.
After DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson was briefed on the IG report, he instituted a 10-point plan that included more training for front-line Transportation Security Officers, testing and evaluating screening equipment to measure performance standards, and assess where screening equipment can be enhanced.
Neffenger said a team put together by Johnson has looked at the each specific failure uncovered by the covert testing. TSA is now in the process of training its officers to correct those failures and expects to complete this by the end of September, he said. However, the “bigger question” is whether there are “systemic failures” in how the agency is doing things to ensure that front-line officers are trained to “the larger questions out there.” This gets down to “how you begin to think oft yourself in this continuously evolving, continuously adapting way.”
Neffenger said of all the elements to the transportation security system, the checkpoint is one of the most important. As for future checkpoint concepts, he said he likes the term “Security at the Speed of Life,” which is essentially the same as the Screening at Speed effort being examined by the DHS Science and Technology Directorate.
The biometric boarding pass concept comes down to tying an individual to a “reservation, an identification,” and doing so “in a verified way,” which means a speedier transit, Neffenger said.
As for screening equipment, he said on challenge is that AIT machines don’t do metal detection and metal detectors can’t detect non-metallic items, and there is nothing sniffing the passenger for explosives. There are prototypes that integrate all of these technologies but Neffenger said he doesn’t know if they can be fielded effectively.
“I think we can do a lot more to incentivize competition in the private sector,” he said. “I am currently tied right now to a process that has me buying a lot of equipment that may be obsolete shortly after I buy it. I have to adapt continuously to a changing threat.”