I was not at all surprised when it was revealed that the Transportation Security Administration had a 95% failure rate during a recent series of tests. I’m sure the TSA screeners found a much higher percentage of water bottles and laptops left in their cases.
An internal investigation of TSA security checkpoints at the nation’s busiest airports, conducted by Homeland Security “Red Teams” posing as passengers, found that agents failed to detect mock explosives in 67 of 70 test cases, according to ABC News. In one test, an undercover agent was stopped after setting off a metal detector, but TSA screeners failed to detect a fake explosive device that was taped to his back during a follow-on pat down.
This is an ongoing problem. A report of a red team getting a test device past TSA security at Newark Airport appeared in 2013.
It’s not that the TSA fails to find dangerous items in luggage. The latest TSA post highlights the 45 firearms discovered in carry-on bags last week.
The problem is one of false positives. The testing of passengers is so out of line with the risks presented that there is a far greater incident of false-positives than problems prevented. It is only human nature to become numb to the false-positive warnings. The fable of “the boy who cried wolf” has been around for centuries.
Screeners will inevitably be drawn to water bottles and laptops instead of actual weapons. That is what they see most often, so that is the problem they will most focus on. I’m sure that thousands of water bottles are confiscated for every dangerous item that passes through airport security.
When we talk about compliance programs, we talk about a risk-based approach. Concentrate your efforts and limited resources on the biggest and most-likely risks to prevent them. Even with the bloated budget of the TSA, its resources are still limited. The technology is often less-than capable. It’s staff is likely under-trained and under-prepared for many possible risks.
When the technology and staff are presented with actual threats, instead of the much more common false-positives, they mostly failed. They failed to spot the real threat because they are distracted by the far more numerous false-positives.
The TSA failure is an example of the results when failing to take risk-based approach to compliance.
Sources:
- EXCLUSIVE: Undercover DHS Tests Find Security Failures at US Airports by Justin Fishel, Pierre Thomas, Mike Levine, Jack Date via Good Morning America
- TSA Compliance for Knives and Water
- Report of fake bomb at Newark airport prompts call for security review
Maybe they have to switch to a more reliable metal detector.