Technology has changed nearly every part of daily life over the last two decades. Americans can pay for groceries with a cellphone, use artificial intelligence to handle everyday tasks and board some flights using little more than a digital ID.
Now, new technology could lead to some of the biggest changes at airport security checkpoints in years.
The Transportation Security Administration is moving forward with one program that loosens a restriction put in place after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks while considering another change that could make getting through security easier for some travelers.
And yes, one of those changes could eventually mean taking a bottle of water through airport security.
TSA is letting some people through security without a plane ticket
Nearly 25 years after 9/11, TSA is beginning to relax a familiar restriction: generally limiting access beyond airport security checkpoints to ticketed passengers.
The agency launched Gateside by TSA PreCheck this week, a new program allowing eligible TSA PreCheck members to go through security without a boarding pass.
“As an exclusive benefit for our most trusted travelers, this new program makes it easier to return to the gate for welcomes and send-offs, meet friends during a layover, and enjoy dining and shopping along the way, bringing back the moments that once defined air travel,” TSA said on its website.
The program is initially available at 13 airports, with TSA planning to expand it to additional locations in the coming months.
TSA PreCheck members with a Known Traveler Number can apply for access one to three days before their planned airport visit. If approved, they can bring an acceptable form of identification and enter the secure gate area through a TSA PreCheck lane.
The change could bring back an airport experience that disappeared after 9/11. Friends and relatives could once again accompany loved ones closer to their departure gate or be waiting inside the terminal when they return home.
It could also allow people who aren't flying to visit airport restaurants and shops located beyond security.
Water bottles could be next
TSA is also considering easing one of the most recognizable post-9/11 airport security rules: restrictions on liquids.
Senior TSA officials told CBS on Wednesday that the agency is considering allowing TSA PreCheck passengers to carry water bottles through security checkpoints.
The change would not immediately apply everywhere. According to CBS, TSA would initially allow it at airports equipped with newer screening systems capable of distinguishing water from other liquids and detecting potential threats.
Not every airport has that technology, and TSA currently does not have enough funding to install the equipment across the entire U.S. airport system.
For travelers using airports that do have the new equipment, however, the change could eventually eliminate the familiar routine of dumping out a water bottle before security and refilling it once inside the terminal.
New technology is changing airport security
Technology is at the center of TSA's push to reconsider some longstanding security procedures.
One major advancement is the growing use of computed tomography, or CT, scanners at checkpoints.
Traditional checkpoint equipment produces two-dimensional images of carry-on bags. TSA says CT technology instead uses sophisticated algorithms to detect explosives and other threats while creating three-dimensional images that security officers can rotate and examine from different angles.
“That can digitally unpack the bags and see what’s underneath the laptop,” TSA Administrator David Cummins told WTOP.
Cummins said TSA has spent the past year working with technology companies to test different combinations of hardware and software in security lanes.
“What we’re doing is we’re pulling it together, the best of the technology into a single lane configuration,” he said. “And we’re going to start with the precheck lanes.”
Other upgrades include automated screening lanes designed to move passengers and bags through checkpoints more efficiently, biometric systems and credential authentication technology that can verify a traveler's identity.
TSA is also introducing E-Gates that incorporate digital identity technology, giving eligible TSA PreCheck members another way to verify their identities while passing through security.
Airport security changed dramatically after 9/11
For younger travelers, many of today's airport security procedures may seem like they have always existed. They haven't.
Before 9/11, people could routinely enter airport terminals without a ticket. Security procedures were considerably different, and friends and family members commonly accompanied passengers to their gates or waited there for arriving flights.
Airport terminals were also destinations themselves for some people, who visited to eat, shop or simply watch airplanes.
Airline security had already evolved before 2001. A wave of aircraft hijackings decades earlier prompted additional federal security measures, including the development of the Federal Air Marshal Service and expanded passenger screening.
But 9/11 fundamentally transformed airport security in the United States.
The federal government created TSA, access to secure terminal areas was restricted, identification requirements became more prominent and carry-on rules were tightened. Restrictions on liquids and increasingly sophisticated passenger and baggage screenings became part of the flying experience.
Nearly a quarter-century later, those security measures aren't disappearing. Instead, TSA is increasingly looking at whether better technology can accomplish the same security goals while eliminating some of the inconveniences travelers have dealt with for years.
