GAO: TSA needs to test whole-body scanners rigorously

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report last week called on the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to ensure that the controversial whole-body imager technologies the agency is planning on deploying at airports around the United States first undergo thorough operational and vulnerability testing.

A failure to do such vetting has already resulted in a similar airport checkpoint security technology for explosives detection being withdrawn from service before being fully deployed, the GAO report noted.

Computerworld’s Jaikumar Vijayan writes that the reports says that in order to avoid the same thing from happening with whole body imagers, the TSA needs to test their effectiveness in day-to-day operations and to assess whether they are vulnerable to terrorist countermeasures.

The GAO report was prepared at the behest of the House Committee on Homeland Security in the aftermath of the failed 25 December bombing attempt of a U.S. airline. The report examines measures for strengthening airport security via the better use of terrorist watch list information and a more planned deployment of checkpoint security technologies.

The report noted that the TSA expects to deploy about 200 whole body imagers, or Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) scanners, by the end of this year. By 2014, as many as 878 units are expected to be installed in airports around the United States.

AIT scanners are designed to detect non-metallic weapons and explosives concealed under a passenger’s clothing — such as the explosive PETN powder that the would-be Christmas Day bomber concealed in his underwear.

The scan creates a graphic image of an individual’s body under their clothes. Privacy advocates have criticized the plan to install such devices, saying they enable virtual strip searching of passengers at U.S. airports. Polls taken in the wake of the attempted bombing attempt, however, appear to show growing public support for the use of the technology.

AIT systems cost between $130,000 and $170,000 and are currently installed at twenty airports.

According to the GAO report, as of October 2009, the TSA had not yet conducted an assessment of the potential tactics that terrorists could employ to evade detection by AIT scanners.

As the attempted bombing on 25 December demonstrated, terrorists have various ways to conceal explosives on their bodies. What is unclear, though, is how effective ATI scanners will be in detecting such hidden explosives, the report said.

The TSA has stated that it has completed testing the AIT scanners as of the end of 2009, the GAO said. The issue of whether that testing was done in an operational environment still needs to be verified. “Completing these steps should better position TSA to ensure that its costly deployment of AIT machines will enhance passenger checkpoint security,” the report said.