Airport Security, 1984-style

Posted: Aug 14, 2006

Newly implemented security measures, following the discovery of the recent airplane bombing plot, have resulted in massive delays and security costs in airports on both sides of the Atlantic. But this threat hasn't caught the US Transport Security Administration unawares. Apparently, the TSA has been flirting for some time now with a pretty Orwellian technology they think could revolutionize airport security.

The WSJ today revealed that TSA officials have been testing an Israeli-developed biometric machine that can detect travelers with "hostile intent". The machine, called "Cogito", asks travelers questions and measures their biometric responses. FP ran a story back in March about similar voice-analysis screening at a Moscow airport. With Cogito, the machine's software draws on Israeli interrogation data and field experience with terrorists to identify suspicious response patterns:

The method isn't intended to catch specific lies, says Shabtai Shoval, chief executive of Suspect Detection Systems, the start-up business behind the technology dubbed Cogito. "What we are looking for are patterns of behavior that indicate something all terrorists have: the fear of being caught," he says.

The machines cost $200,000 each and had a 85% success rate in mock Israeli trials. It sounds good: According to company releases, the machines would speed up and cheapen security procedures as well as help identify suspicious travelers without resorting to racial profiling.

But there's always (and in this case, a particulary frightening) catch. The machine still implicates many innocent travelers. It can also be culturally calibrated based on demographic research, which means that not only could certain ideologies and opinions be targeted by the machines, but certain ethnic or social groups as well.