The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is aiming for a streamlined travel experience in airports across the country in the coming years.
When asked what the TSA experience will be like for travelers by 2030, Adam Stahl, acting deputy administrator for the organization, said onstage at Skift Global Forum last week that he hopes it will be “incredibly seamless.”
“There are passport derived digital ID credentials that are either out on select smartphones … or are on the verge of coming out,” Stahl said. “We have a touchless identity solution as well that a lot of the airlines are using [at] select airports in the United States.”
Stahl said the solution allows travelers to skip taking out a form of ID.
“You could theoretically go through the checkpoint, and go through travel to and from an airport and never have to take your phone out,” he said. “These are things for us that make the passenger experience better, more streamlined, more enjoyable. And again, it's good for business. It's good for airlines. It's good for airports. It's good for the companies within the airport itself and just commerce at large.”
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There are other technological advancements playing into the TSA's streamlining efforts, namely artificial intelligence (AI), as it sweeps across the industry.
“AI, of course, is ubiquitous across the world right now, across multiple sectors,” Stahl said.
The TSA is using AI and Stahl referenced threat targeting, adding that there are two pieces of technology that the administration is looking at.
“One is something called ‘Open Architecture’ that we're looking at, which is essentially an open, TSA-owned interface, for lack of a better word for baggage screening, that will allow targeting algorithms so multiple companies can come in and overlay multiple target rhythms to identify, guns, liquids, explosives, accelerants, things that shouldn't be on in bags or on airplanes,” he said. “There's … intellectual property issues right now, if we could put that together in one singular space, that's going to be huge.”
He continued: “Additionally, there's something called ‘Image On Alarm Only’. It's essentially an automated version of baggage screening when your bag goes through. So it will only essentially alert a person when there's an issue.”
Stahl said those tools are and will continue to be force multipliers in the aviation security domain.
Biometrics are another area the TSA is looking at—and has implemented already in its security checkpoints.
“It's good for the passenger experience. It improves passenger expediency. It's good for security,” he said. “It's more cost effective, and also, lastly, wildly popular with travelers as a result. So, it's a critical anchor, biometrics. Of course, we need to be respectful of privacy and be cognizant of some of the privacy impacts.”
That said, Stahl said TSA is committed to deploying biometrics.
On its website, the TSA offers a list of use cases for AI within the administration along with a summary of what each entails ranging from pre-deployment to deployment to inactive. Use cases examples include Answer Engine, Machine Learning Analysis Applied to Cyber Threat Hunt Data, Airport Throughput Predictive Model and many more.
The TSA’s efforts to implement new technology and streamline processes come at the same time as digital identity is being heavily explored and encouraged in other countries, potentially changing the travel process.
For example, the European Commission’s digital wallet initiative is set to go into effect next year. Industry stakeholders have been vocal about what the future holds for digital ID and how it intersects with AI.