Much has been written about the $45 fee that the TSA plans to offer travelers the “option” to pay if they lack a REAL ID, or forget theirs at home. The process promises to be an annoyance to everyone, as identity verification through the program is expected to take at least 10-15 minutes while in line at the airport; longer if someone cannot present their receipt (yes, you need to prove to the TSA that you have paid their tax before they will do you the honor of investigating you).
What should concern travelers most is the opaque nature of the “ConfirmID” process. The TSA has not shared any details of the process, other than describing it as a “modernized alternative identity verification option”. It’s not clear what sources will be used to “verify” a person’s identity, or even what questions a potential traveler might have to answer at a checkpoint.
There are the usual questions associated with “big data” projects. If AI is being used, what is its expected error rate (not that any error would be acceptable, but to quantify how bad it will be)? What data is being collected and stored, and who else is it being shared with? And perhaps most importantly, is there any evidence that “verifying” a person’s identity actually reduces the risk of a terrorist attack? The “Underwear Bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had a Nigerian passport (foreign passports are acceptable forms of “alternative ID” for identity verification by the TSA) and a valid US travel visa, so even positive identification would not have caused officers to intervene.
Racial discrimination is another possible avenue. In the past, TSA screening procedures have been shown to be rife with racial and ethnic profiling. How much discretion is granted to TSOs in allowing a traveler to pass through the checkpoint? Would Muslim-appearing passengers be subjected to stricter identity verification checks while light-skinned travelers are granted the benefit of the doubt? This is all speculation, of course, but the TSA has not provided any detail which would allow it to credibly deny any such claims. We are simply asked to trust the good intentions of an agency with a history of (intentional or inadvertent) racial profiling.
Alas, no information has yet been provided, and travelers are left the option to pay $45, and only through a webpage which lacks the required OMB control number and contains an ominous warning that big brother is always watching:
[Image ID: A screenshot of the footer of pay.gov’s website, which contains the text “WARNING WARNING WARNING…THERE IS NO RIGHT TO PRIVACY IN THIS SYSTEM”. The warning does not apply to this website, as far as I am aware]
End the TSA 