TSA debuts new scanner software

By Ashley Halsey III

The TSA demonstrates new software in a full-body scanner at Reagan National Airport. (By Ashley Halsey III / The Post)

[This post will be updated: 4:05 p.m. Update]

New software designed to make airport security scanners less intrusive will debut at the Las Vegas airport Tuesday.

Instead of sending a revealing image to be examined in a private security booth, new software will project a non-gender-specific silhouette on a small screen attached to the scanning booth.

If the passenger is carrying any contraband items a red box will appear on the screen. Otherwise it will flash a green okay.

The new technology was put on display by Transportation Security Administration head John S. Pistole at Reagan National Airport Tuesday.

The new software will be coming to Reagan National and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport next. That will happen "in the coming weeks," TSA spokesman Greg Soule said.

The images produced by the current software led to an uproar over privacy concerns. Pistole had said in the fall that he wanted to see modifications, but the technology that was being tested yielded too many false positives. Many passengers found the alternative, "enhanced" pat-downs by TSA agents even more disturbing.

In the demonstration at Reagan National Airport Tuesday, "passengers" filed through the scanners, some of them producing gray silhouettes with green "okay" screens, others producing the same silhouettes with red boxes where the machine detected something hidden.

Two types of scanning machines -- backscatter and millimeter wave -- have been installed at airports since 2007, when they were launched as part of a pilot program at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Both machines produce the same full-body images that attracted controversy; they work by bouncing X-rays or radio waves off skin or concealed objects.

According to the TSA, the new software is being tested on millimeter wave machines, but the agency plans to test similar software on backscatter units.

"It's sort of like developing software for an Apple computer and a P.C.," said TSA spokesman Nick Kimball. "The software has to be different."

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