The future of airport security is here: Get ready for self-service lanes 

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is launching a new airport security checkpoint configuration whereby travelers process themselves through the security area. These self-service lanes are being piloted at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas. If successful, the system will be expanded to other large airports across the nation, creating a new model for airport security screening. 

Self-service checkout lanes have become popular in retail outlets, as a measure to reduce touch points between people (following the COVID-19 pandemic) and as a cost savings measure. It requires fewer employees to man a bank of check-out lanes than it does to place a cashier at each such lane. The TSA is jumping onto this self-service bandwagon to take advantage of the conveniences offered by the self-service paradigm. 

Yet an airport security checkpoint is not a retail check-out area. Is it really a good idea to insert an economic model into a security system? 

To answer this question, note that the TSA’s mission is to “Protect the nation's transportation systems to ensure freedom of movement for people and commerce.” To fulfil this mission for air travel, it uses multiple layers to protect the air system from egregious acts of violence that can disrupt its operation and damage its assets. All such layers are designed to manage risk, or more specifically, buy down risk in a cost-effective and appropriate manner. 

What self-service security checkpoint lanes offer is the opportunity to give certain travelers more control over their airport security experience. At present, the only travelers eligible to use these self-service security lanes are PreCheck passengers. Such passengers have voluntarily undergone a background check and been fingerprinted. These travelers, except for known crew members, pose the lowest risk to the air system. 

To ensure that passengers are who they claim to be requires robust identity verification. The TSA Credential Authentication Technology with facial recognition (CAT-2) plays a critical role in this process.  

By offering self-service security lanes to PreCheck passengers, the amount of extra risk that it accrues in the air system is negligible, if not zero.  What these lanes do is allow such seasoned travelers to move through security checkpoints more efficiently and conveniently. It also reduces the need to interact with TSA officers, which, over time, should reduce the number of such people required to fill the needs at an airport security checkpoint. 

Anytime the TSA introduces new procedures or technologies, it has undergone rigorous testing and evaluation within simulated security environments (in this case, conducted at the TSA Systems Integration Facility in Arlington, Va.). For something new to make it to airport security checkpoints, this testing ensures that it will perform as expected, with many of the kinks and bugs worked out. 

However, there may still be some unexpected surprises along the way. That is why just one airport is implementing self-service security lanes, and it is limited only for use by Precheck passengers. The Las Vegas airport operation will provide valuable information for how self-service airport security lanes can function in the field. 

Though one day self-service may be the norm at airport security checkpoints, lessons learned from retail self-service checkout lanes should not be ignored by the TSA. Retails outlets have observed merchandise loss, known as “shrink”, which includes such acts as shoplifting. For airport security, this is equivalent to some risk seeping through a checkpoint into the sterile side of the airport with some passengers. That is why the TSA is opening self-service lanes only to its most known, or trusted passengers, whose baseline risk is already quite low.  

Moving forward, these lanes should be offered only to PreCheck passengers, which provides yet another incentive for all travelers to enroll in PreCheck. Offering it to all other travelers would be misguided, adding far too much risk to the air system that would be difficult to justify. 

What self-service airport security lanes are really doing is moving the TSA toward “right-sizing” airport security screening. This means better aligning security procedures and protocols to the risk of passengers, the foundation of risk-based security, which is the TSA’s underlying principle. Such “personalized security” is the ideal for future airport security procedures. 

At present, far too many passengers are being “overscreened,” which means they are subject to more security screening than is necessary based on their risk footprint. The challenge is assessing with confidence and accuracy the risk footprint of each passenger. PreCheck vetting coupled with facial recognition moves such an assessment forward in an appropriate and positive way, permitting these passengers to be much closer to being “right-size” screened through self-service lanes.  

The TSA knows that tightening airport security based on elevated system risk is straightforward. Relaxing security is far more challenging. Self-service checkpoint lanes appropriately empower low-risk passengers to oversee their airport security screening. This should be just one of many steps forward to identify and incorporate “right-size” screening protocols into airport security operations. The TSA should be commended for experimenting with a new model that supports such changes. 

Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., is a professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He applies his expertise in data-driven risk-based decision-making to evaluate and inform public policy.  He has studied aviation security for over 25 years, providing the technical foundations for risk-based security that informed the design of TSA PreCheck.