Body scanners used at TSA airport checkpoints may be more likely to trigger false alarms if you're black or overweight.
, indicates that certain hairstyles common with members of the African American community such as afros, braids, and dreadlocks, tend to set off false alarms.Unfortunately, this results in"hair pat downs" that require screeners to run their fingers through passengers' hair. It's a procedure the story called invasive and degrading.
that indicates the scanners also"had a higher false alarm rate when passengers wore turbans and wigs." Furthermore, the GAO report found that it isn't just headgear and hairstyles that increases the rate of false alarms, a passenger's body fat content will also affect the rate of false alarms."The false alarm rate for passengers with a normal Body Mass Index was less than the false alarm rates for overweight and obese passengers," The GAO report said.
According to the GAO report, the TSA did not include the rate of false alarms as a key performance requirement when it evaluated which scanning system to deploy. However, the agency did admit in the report that"systems' current false alarm rate could produce an increase in annual staffing costs in the field."
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