Transportation Security Administrator (TSA) John Pistole says that he wants to begin taking a look as early at this year at a risk-based approach to passenger screening at airport security checkpoints rather than the one-size fits all method that is currently in place.
Pistole didn’t go into detail on any specific risk-based approach to passenger screening but says it would entail things like passengers voluntarily giving additional information so that more informed background checks could be done as well as ways to verify the indentify of these persons for expedited processing at the checkpoint.
That additional passenger information would go beyond what TSA currently requires for the Secure Flight background check program, that is, name, date-of-birth and gender, Pistole tells the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation Security. While Secure Flight allows the agency to know if someone may be on a watch list, additional information about a person is needed to do a criminal history check or other checks, so that “then we might be able to afford them a different type of security screening,” he says.
Pistole says that he has created several working groups to review this approach to Trusted Traveler screening.
“I’ll have more information as this year goes on but I’m committed to do something this year that would demonstrate a different paradigm for how we would go about doing passenger screening; who we screen, how we screen,” Pistole says.
The idea of a risk-based approach to passenger screening to airport checkpoints was given a boost late last year by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which wants airports and governments around the world to adopt security practices that focus more on “bad people” rather than “bad things.” IATA represents 230 of the world’s passenger and cargo airlines.
The near-term concept that IATA would like to see tested at an international airport would separate checkpoints into three lanes, Known Traveler, Regular, and Enhanced, each employing some variation of technology currently available today, while also employing identity management solutions and risk-based assessments, using for example, terror watchlist databases. Behavior detection techniques would also be part of the passenger segregation process.
The goal of the separate security lanes include improving the travel experience of passengers while providing appropriate levels of physical security depending on the risk each traveler presents.
Already the International Civil Aviation Organization, an arm of the United Nation’s, is exploring risk-based passenger screening concepts.
Pistole is already moving forward with applying the trusted traveler concept to airline flight crews. Last fall TSA began expedited screening measures for U.S. carrier pilots to pass through airport security checkpoints based on their trusted status.
Pistole tells the House panel that his decision on pilots was risk-based. Since they are in charge of the aircraft, “Frankly I was not concerned that they had a prohibited item on their person because they could put the flight down,” he says. “It is not the physical screening that is going to detect that is what’s in the person’s head.”
AIT Auto-Threat Algorithm Testing
During the hearing, Pistole also addressed plans for field testing automated threat detection algorithms on Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) deployed at the nation’s airports. TSA earlier this month announced that pilot testing of the algorithm has begun on L-3 Communications‘ [LLL] ProVision AIT system installed at three airports: Las Vegas McCarran; Atlanta’s Hartsfield Jackson; and Washington D.C.’s Reagan National.
Pistole expects the pilot testing to last between 45 and 60 days to assess whether the results found in laboratory testing, which met agency requirements, are achieved in an operational environment.
As to how the testing is going, Pistole says it’s too early to judge although he notes that early indications from McCarran are that “it’s going well. We are working through some issues, for example, an individual with a pony tail that may show up as an anomaly on the machine…but that’s easily resolvable with a visual inspection.” He also says that throughput has been increased “some.”
Pistole also says that so far at Las Vegas the passenger feedback has been “positive” because they get to see the images that feature the anomaly detection software.
The new software is expected to further address, if not eliminate, privacy concerns individuals have with the AIT technology, namely the graphic depiction of their bodies on a screen used by a security officer who is stationed remotely. That’s because the anomaly detection software eliminates the graphic images of individuals and replaces them with a generic outline of a person if a potential threat is detected. The location of any potential threats is highlighted on the generic outline.
As with current procedures, TSA officers will work with the passenger to resolve any alarms, which will include a targeted pat down of areas that are highlighted on the screen.
If no potential threat items are detected, then an “OK” will appear on the screener’s monitor with no generic outline presented.
As for pilot testing of Rapiscan’s Secure 1000 AIT system, Pistole says the company is still working on its auto-detection algorithm. He expects lab testing of the system, which is based on backscatter X-Ray technology, to occur later this summer with pilot testing in airports this fall. Rapiscan is a division of OSI Systems [OSIS].
Privatized Screening
Also at the hearing, Pistole received a barrage of concerns over some of his recent and controversial decisions to halt an airport security screening privatization program at 16 airports as well as to allow Transportation Security Officers limited collective bargaining rights.
Pistole says that for the Screening Partnership Program (SPP) to go beyond the current 16 airports there would have to be “clear, compelling information or evidence” of a benefit, either in terms of security or efficiency. Moreover, Pistole says the SPP program limits the “flexibility and agility” he seeks from a “federal counter-terrorism agency and we are best able to train, deploy and execute on our mission as a federal work force.”
For example, Pistole says that TSA can’t take screeners working for a private security firm at an airport and surge them to other airports around the country in an emergency as was done during Hurricane Katrina when many agency employees at the New Orleans airport were busy tending to their families, which made it necessary for federal screeners to be flown in to manage the checkpoints.
“Or if there’s specific intelligence about a particular airport, I can’t move those individuals,” Pistole says. “Or if we were to have a change about our protocols, such as enhanced pat downs, it’s a more cumbersome process right now” to deal with the privatized screeners, he adds.
There hasn’t been a rush for airports to join in the SPP program, Pistole points out. Since becoming Administrator last summer, Pistole says only two more airports have applied to join the program, one prior to his announcement last month to limit it to the current number of airports and once since then.
Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.) was dissatisfied with Pistole’s justification for limiting the SPP effort. He questions whether adding two more airports to the program would hinder TSA’s flexibility in responding to events and he said that by limiting competition for privatized screeners, airports and the agency wouldn’t would not get all the benefits that competition breeds in terms of efficiencies and improved operations.
At the outset of the hearing, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chairman of the subcommittee, says he plans to host hearings soon year to better understand how TSA spends funds.
Noting that there have been “high profile media stories” on wasteful spending by TSA, Rogers says he has already met with the Government Accountability Office and the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General “to discuss TSA’s acquisitions and spending practices.” He adds that, “I believe TSA and the taxpayer could benefit from procurement and acquisition reforms and I plan to pursue them.”