The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General (IG) is currently conducting covert testing of people scanners used at airport screening checkpoints and the early indications show potential problems with the technology, the head of the office says.
The “early returns” of the ongoing covert testing of the Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) “give us some concern,” John Roth, the DHS IG, tells the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Asked by Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) what the nature of the concern is, Roth replied, “Whether they’re effective.”
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has deployed hundreds of AIT systems made by L-3 Communications [LLL] to the nation’s airports for use in screening individuals as they pass through the aviation security checkpoint. The company’s millimeter wave-based systems, which are also deployed at airports in other countries, automatically alert screening officers to the location of potential threat objects on a person’s body hidden beneath their clothing.
Roth says that a classified report on the covert testing will eventually be produced by his office. In his prepared statement for the committee, he states the testing is evaluating the effectiveness of the automated target recognition software and checkpoint screener performance.
TSA previously also deployed AIT machines made by Rapiscan Systems, a division of OSI Systems [OSIS], but pulled those scanners from checkpoints after the company was unable to meet the agency’s requirements for automated threat detection.
After passing both qualification and operational testing and evaluation, TSA recently awarded L-3 a $10.1 million contract for the next-generation of AIT systems, called AIT-2. The company is providing 61 of the machines to replace existing body scanners at airports. The newer systems are expected to increase detection capabilities and passenger throughputs and also take up less space.
For now L-3 remains the only company supplying TSA with the AIT machines. Smiths Detection, a division of Britain’s Smiths Group, had a low-rate initial production (LRIP) contract to supply TSA with several AIT-2 machines for qualification testing and evaluation but the company last April withdrew from the testing after failing it.
American Science and Engineering [ASEI], another company that received an AIT-2 LRIP contract from TSA, so far has also failed the qualification phase, and must address these failures to continue with the testing, according to TSA. If the company passes the qualification testing, it will receive a delivery order for operational testing and evaluation, the agency says.
TSA says in a FedBizOpps.gov announcement that if AS&E progresses to the operational testing phase, it estimates the company won’t complete that phase until early in FY ’16.
Roth also says in his prepared testimony that the IG office in general has done a “series of covert penetration tests—essentially testing TSA’s ability to stop us from bringing simulated explosives and weapons through checkpoints, as well as testing whether we could enter secured areas through other means. Although the results of those tests are classified, we identified vulnerabilities caused by human and technology-based failures.”