Sheldon H. Jacobson is a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
In the 25 years since the 9/11 attacks, airport security has been relentlessly hardened to keep out threats. The Transportation Security Administration has deployed advanced imaging technologies for full-body scanning; placed limits on liquids, aerosols and gels; and required passengers to remove electronic devices from their carry-on bags.
But these policies get security backward. They focus on dangerous items — they should instead focus on dangerous people. That starts with not over-screening the safest passengers.
In 2025, the TSA conducted more than 900 million screenings at airport security checkpoints. The vast majority of travelers were not a threat, but the TSA still screened them with the same scrutiny applied to more suspicious passengers. When security personnel direct valuable attention toward low-risk passengers, high-risk fliers have a better chance to slip through without being properly screened. This misallocation of TSA resources is a danger that most travelers are blind to.
In May, TSA officers let a passenger accused of using a forged ticket board a plane. Hundreds of other passengers bypassed TSA measures in the span of one year. In 2015, the acting head of the TSA was reassigned because his officers let weapons through security in 95 percent of test cases. Yet, despite demonstrated gaps in security, the TSA divides its limited efforts among every passenger.
This one-size-fits-all approach to security also funnels passengers into a soft target. Roughly two-thirds of all people screened at airport security checkpoints pass through slower standard security lanes, sometimes waiting as long as 45 minutes. That leaves them vulnerable to an attack. In 2013, a gunman opened fire at a security checkpoint at Los Angeles International Airport, but procedures have not changed significantly since then.
To fix these problems, the TSA should adopt a more comprehensive risk-based approach to security, allocating resources based on the actual threat individual passengers pose. The TSA began moving in the right direction by creating TSA PreCheck in 2011. The program gives passengers access to expedited screening lanes after they pass a background check. This frees the TSA to more heavily scrutinize the non-PreCheck passengers it knows less about.
The challenge in risk-based security is identifying which travelers are actually a threat to the air-travel system. Secure Flight is a TSA program that runs passengers against watch lists to determine who requires a more thorough screening. But it’s not foolproof. Flagging high-risk passengers is difficult to do with any precision because the TSA has access to only a limited amount of information about each flier. The next-best approach is to determine who should qualify for expedited screening, which is what PreCheck is designed to do by vetting enrollees.
However, PreCheck needs to dramatically expand. Because PreCheck lanes use less sophisticated technology and require fewer officers, the TSA could concentrate its manpower and more advanced equipment on the smaller cohort of unvetted fliers in standard lanes.
Getting more people to enroll in PreCheck requires removing barriers. The most obvious one is the program’s cost, which can be as high as $85 for a five-year enrollment. For people who travel just one or two times per year, that may be a hurdle. The harder problem to solve is people’s reluctance to provide personal information to the TSA for background checks. The TSA should make this process as seamless as possible.
The TSA could also create a “Super PreCheck,” which would give travelers access to expedited security lanes and procedures similar to those for airline employees participating in the Crewmember Access Point program. Super PreCheck enrollees would be able to pass through the checkpoint without any physical screening, provided their identity and biometrics were authenticated. The vetting required to enroll in a Super PreCheck program would need to be as stringent as that of a low-level security clearance, but the program could further decrease the strain on TSA resources.
If the TSA is committed to risk-based security, then it should transform the airport security system into one that requires fewer standard screening lanes. Focusing on the people who actually pose threats will prevent airport security from being stuck in the past — while keeping passengers safer.
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