The Transportation Security Administration is working with Congress to change the law to allow new technologies to be used for airport checkpoint body scanners that don’t require the need for enhanced privacy features like those used for current Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) systems, an agency official said last month.
The current law requires a “body representative avatar” for the AIT systems, Dan Williams, the capabilities manager for TSA’s On-Person Screening program withing the Office of Requirements and Capabilities Analysis said during a virtual industry day in mid-August.
The generic avatars are required to eliminate specific images of passengers and replace them with generic outline of a person where the presence of potential threat items hidden beneath clothing can be highlighted on specific location on the passenger’s body for a Transportation Security Officer to administer a localized pat down.
Without the avatar and privacy-related algorithms, the active millimeter wave technology that’s used in the current fleet of TSA operated AIT systems supplied by Leidos [LDOS] would present fairly graphic detail of each person’s body image on the operator display. The success in marrying the privacy enhancements with the threat location alerts paved the way for the purchase and deployment of the AIT systems.
Williams said Congress might modify the law “so, we could use different images that do not show any kind of specific body parts or any kind of skin surface.”
He highlighted that technology has changed in the past dozen years since privacy laws were written for the AIT systems.
“So now, we’re just seeing if we can get away from maybe a generic GUI (graphical user interface) type situation into like a CCTV image,” Williams said.
In a statement for HSR, TSA said it “continues to work with Congress to review legislative requirements related to security screening technologies while suggesting changes that reflect current technologies and capabilities.”
TSA is examing technology supplied by United Kingdom-based ThruVision, which makes body scanners based on passive terahertz technology, which doesn’t provide detailed outlines of a person’s body but in real-time can show the presence of potential threats and other items hidden beneath a person’s clothing for an operator to see. This technology, which isn’t considered AIT, doesn’t require privacy enhancing features but for the time being TSA is stuck with the current body scanners until the law is changed to allow other types of images for the checkpoint application as Williams pointed to.
“We measure the energy or heat coming from your body,” Kevin Gramer, vice president Americas for ThruVision, told HSR last month. “So, the energy coming from your body, we see the items that are blocking that energy. So, whether it’s a weapon, drugs, cash, any of the contraband or threat items that TSA is looking for, we can detect those on the body.”
This also means low false alarm rates, Gramer said.
As the COVID-19 pandemic stretches on and the public still wary of air travel combined with concerns for TSOs that are in close contact with travelers at airports, TSA the past few months has been touting a “touchless” or “contactless” vision for security screening experience. This theme was sounded frequently during the virtual industry day.
When an AIT system provides a threat alert, a TSO conducts a pat down on the area of the body where the system suggests there is a potential threat item.
TSA is “looking for some kind of standalone system to minimize or eliminate pat down search,” Kevin Chan, the alarm resolution Capabilities Manager for TSA, said during the industry day.
One of the biggest problems leading to pat down searches is that the detection capability on the AIT systems “isn’t quite where we want it to be so we’re working to improve that,” Williams said. Another is false alarms, specifically the threat alert on a certain location on the avatar that doesn’t correspond to the exact spot the item is actually on the person’s body, “which would necessitate a pat down,” he said.
If TSA can use a different technology, or add a technology to its body scanning processes, that could help eliminate pat downs, Williams said.
“So, if we got away from a type of generic avatar that crunches everybody into one box, it would be easier to distinguish on passengers for the TSO’s to say, ‘Oh, that’s a cell phone in your pocket, can you please remove it. I don’t have to touch you,’” he said. “Whereas now, it just shows up like a yellow icon on our current screen and we don’t know what it is. So as far as material discrimination, that would absolutely help out and where it actually is pinpoint it on a person’s body as it displays on a screen would be helpful.”
Gramer said his company’s technology could be used in primary screening applications but also in a secondary screening mode to resolve alarms so that a pat down wouldn’t be required if someone alarms when they are scanned by an AIT system. Use in a secondary screening application is more likely in the near-term, he said.
ThruVision’s camera systems are being used by some companies for loss prevention and some airports for employee screening and is also being used in some customs applications.