By Calvin Biesecker
Whole body imaging systems equipped with Automatic Threat Recognition (ATR) software in use for passenger screening at security checkpoints at Amsterdam’s Schiphol International Airport are still producing false alarm rates that are unacceptable for deployment of the automated threat detection software on body scanners in use in the U.S., according to the head of security technology programs at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
Schiphol is experiencing between 70 and 80 percent false alarms or nuisance alarms, Robin Kane, assistant administrator for TSA’s Office of Security Technology, said last week at the American Association of Airport Executives annual Aviation Security Summit. “So they’re touching a very large amount of people resulting from alarms from AIT (Advanced Imaging Technology) that we have not considered operationally suitable here.”
TSA’s actual requirements for false alarms with the AIT systems–the agency’s name for the body imagers–are sensitive but certainly lower than what Schiphol is experiencing, Kane said. He adds that there are detection requirements that also have to be met.
The AIT systems at Schiphol are the millimeter-wave-based ProVision supplied by L-3 Communications [LLL]. TSA is currently acquiring the ProVision and OSI Systems‘ [OSIS] Secure 1000, which is based on backscatter X-ray technology.
Kane said that TSA is working with L-3 and OSI’s Rapiscan division to get ATR algorithms that work “a little differently” than that in use at Schiphol.
Kane also said that developing the ATR algorithms is a priority for TSA, which will help answer concerns over individual privacy and resource constraints by freeing screeners to do other duties. TSA’s current AIT operations require a screener to view images remotely while an operator stationed at the machine manages the use of the system for each person.
Scot Thaxton, the assistant general manager for the Operations Improvement Branch within TSA’s Office of Security Operations, said at the conference that the ATR capability will improve passenger throughput because image review is a bottleneck at the checkpoint and it will allow increased utilization of the AIT machines.
AIT systems help screening officers see beneath a person’s clothing, yet also reveal graphic body details. The systems in use by TSA deliver privacy-enhanced images such as blurring a person’s face yet even these still present enough anatomic detail to fuel civil liberty complaints. L-3’s ATR-equipped AIT systems in Schiphol depict a stylized human figure and highlights any objects on a person’s body, alerting a screener where to focus a subsequent search of the individual.
For its part, L-3 officials said that a lot of the false alarms being reported by security officials at Schiphol are not due to inadequacies in the ATR algorithms but instead because passengers going through the scanning machines aren’t always divesting items such as wallets, jewelry, belts and the like as they are still required to. So the ProVision systems are alerting to these items, they said.
The threat part of ATR is actually a misnomer as the algorithms essentially pick up on anomalies in or beneath a person’s clothing. They don’t distinguish between a wallet and a threat such as a plastic explosive.
Bill Frain, senior vice president for L-3’s Security and Detection Systems business unit, told sister publication TR2 that his company expects to be able to meet TSA’s ATR requirements in the first quarter “timeframe” of 2011.
So far TSA has deployed 433 AIT systems across 71 airports in the United States. The goal is 490 installations by year-end, although the agency may fall a couple short, Kane said. Training and adequate staffing are also key elements of the deployments, he added.
TSA also plans to deploy 500 more AIT systems in 2011. While the ATR algorithms can be retrofitted onto the scanners once they are ready from each manufacturer, Kane said the plan for the AIT rollout next year has been for the machines to have the ATR capability in place.
“We’ve always looked at those to have Automatic Target Recognition by the time we roll out the next 500,” Kane said. “That’s in our plan. We’ve stated that to Congress.”
If the agency does wait for the ATR capability to be ready before deploying the next 500 AIT systems, it may be a while. That’s because in addition to getting the capability qualified at the Transportation Security Laboratory, TSA also has to make sure the technology is “operational feasible so that it doesn’t impact the operations at the checkpoint too much,” Kane said.
If all that goes smoothly, then TSA still has to get approval from “oversight boards” to roll the ATR capability out because it is a major program change for the AIT technology.
Kane didn’t say what impact, if any, there will be next year to the AIT deployments given the ongoing continuing resolution that is funding the federal government at FY ’10 budget levels.