The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will roll out a new device to test ID cards and drivers licenses later this month.
TSA officers will be issued with handheld black lights to examine documents at security checkpoints. The three-inch lights are designed to check the holograms found on passports and drivers licenses and alert officers to any signs of forgery.
Officials will use the lights in conjunction with magnifying glasses to test the validity of ID documents. More than 2,000 lights and the same number of spyglasses will be dispatched to the nation’s airports, reports USA Today.
Kip Hawley, Chief Executive of the TSA, told the newspaper that “this is a significant security upgrade” which will be used alongside new behavior-monitoring techniques.
David Castelveter from the Air Transport Association added that TSA screeners are well placed to check documents instead of airline officials, suggesting that this is “the kind of resources the TSA can devote to the document-checking that the airlines didn’t”.
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