AviationGAO says TSA’s costly behavioral detection program falls short

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said last week that DHSmay have wasted $1 billion on the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques (SPOT) program. SPOT is a behavior observation and analysis program which places TSA Behavior Detection Officers (BDOs) in the country’s airport with the goal of spotting terrorists by detecting “anomalous” or suspicious behavior. The anomalous behavior – perspiration, fidgeting, restlessness – is supposed to be the result of high levels of stress, fear, or deception. Individuals who exhibit anomalous behavior are subject to additional security screening.

NBC News reports that GAO concluded in its report that available evidence does not support the approach that behavioral indicators can be used to identify individuals who may pose a risk to aviation security.

The GAO reviewed four meta-analyses which included more than 400 studies from the past sixty years and found that the human ability accurately to identify deceptive behavior based on behavioral indicators is “the same as or slightly better than chance.” Moreover, a DHS April 2011 study conducted to validate SPOT’s behavioral indicators did not demonstrate SPOT’s effectiveness because of study limitations, including the use of unreliable data. According to GAO, twenty-one of the twenty-five behavior detection officers GAO interviewed at four airports said that some behavioral indicators are subjective. TSA officials agree, and said they are working to define them better.

The SPOT program was launched in 2007 and is now operating at 176 U.S. airports, employing an estimated 3,000 BDOs. The program has its defenders. Rafi Ron, CEO OF New Age Security Solutions and former director of security at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport, said the SPOT program supplements other security screening systems and procedures. “I think that it is an extremely important layer because otherwise we will go back to the so-called dark ages of believing that … this is all about detecting weapons or items,” he told NBC News. “What we are doing is not enough. … If we are facing somebody who presents a high level of risk, then we need to search him beyond what we are doing at the airport level, the checkpoint level.”

Representative Mike McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of House Homeland Security Committee, said that the GAO report is “concerning, particularly in light of the fact that TSA has spent almost $1 billion on the program. While I believe that there is value in utilizing behavioral detection and analysis in the aviation environment, we can only support programs that are proven effective,” he said. “The terrorist threats to our aviation system require us to constantly re-evaluate and evolve our security procedure, and if this program isn’t working, we need to find something that will.”

TSA officials agreed that some of the behavioral indicators need to be better defined, and said the agency plans to collect additional performance data better to evaluate SPOT’s effectiveness. DHS did disagree with the GAO’s recommendation that TSA “limit future funding support for the agency’s behavior detection activities until TSA can provide scientifically validated evidence.”

DHS said that its review of the GAO report found that the GAO’s conclusions regarding DHS’s April 2011 SPOT validation study were inaccurate. DHS says the GAO used different statistical techniques which resulted in “misleading” conclusions, and that the GAO’s review of research literature omitted some studies which supported the use of behavior detection.