Advanced Airport Security Causes More Questions

Students at Northeastern University are working on a multitude of new products made with the purpose of shortening airport security wait times, but not without question.

Their main project seems to be a device that could notify TSA officials of the exact moment when someone walks through a security exit the wrong way, flagging the person as well for easier tracking. It would do this by scanning their face, stature, clothes, and other unique aspects that could be helpful in finding the target.

Prior to the invention of this new technology, TSA agents were forced to close down entire terminals, or even whole airports in order to find their perpetrator, in turn canceling flights and drastically lowering the productivity of the airport as a unit.

Of course, there are questions being raised about if and how this could begin to infringe on the rights of citizens. The possibility of face recognition technology had Kade Crockford, director of the Technology for Liberty project of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, wary of the possibility that they could simply scan faces to get all of the information there is to know about certain individuals within the airport. She warns that if this technology were to be developed and used in an airport, it would be inevitable for it to take to other locations.

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