The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) last week notified Congress that it would not extend a deadline that expires today for equipping and deploying privacy filtering software on the body scanning systems installed at airports in the United States.
John Pistole, the TSA administrator, said in a May 24 letter to the House Homeland Security Committee leadership that as of May 16, all of the Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) units deployed by the agency are equipped with the Automated Target Recognition software. The original deadline for having all AIT machines configured with the ATR capability was May 31, 2012, but Pistole last year extended that until today.
Pistole’s action means that only AIT units supplied by L-3 Communications [LLL] to the TSA are deployed at U.S. airports. OSI Systems’ [OSIS] Rapiscan Systems division was the only other supplier of AIT units to the agency but the company could never get its ATR software to meet TSA standards.
TSA said in January that it would be removing the Rapiscan AIT systems, at the expense of Rapiscan, due to the company’s inability to develop the ATR. The agency has replaced most of Rapiscan’s systems, which are based on backscatter technology, with those of L-3, which rely on millimeter waves to look for potential threat objects concealed beneath a person’s clothing at airport checkpoints.
TSA purchased 250 AIT systems from Rapiscan.
“I applaud TSA for becoming compliant with the law mandating that all AIT machines used by TSA are equipped with up-to-date privacy filters,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), ranking member on the House panel, said in a statement on Wednesday. “Because of this action and congressional oversight, TSA will never again use machines to screen passengers that do not obscure their images while maintaining security.”