The Future Attribute Screening Technologies (FAST) program is the latest technology supported by the DHS that attempts to decipher the thoughts of other individuals. FAST, renamed from Project Hostile Intent, supposedly works.
At an equestrian centre in Maryland, 140 paid volunteers walked through a pair of trailers kitted out with a battery of FAST sensors, including cameras, infrared heat sensors and an eyesafe laser radar, called a Bio-Lidar, that measures pulse and breathing rate from a distance.
Some subjects were told to act shifty, be evasive, deceptive and hostile. And many were detected. “We’re still very early on in this research, but it is looking very promising,” says DHS science spokesman John Verrico. “We are running at about 78% accuracy on mal-intent detection, and 80% on deception.”
What is the rate of false-positives and false-negatives? If the 80% is accurate, a 20% failure rate is completely unacceptable. Anything more than 1% is unacceptable.
That sounds incredibly high at such an early stage in the research – but only tests on vast quantities of real people, rather than eager volunteers, will present any real test.
Exactly! People who really have a hostile intent aren’t going to act shifty, be evasive, deceptive or hostile.
Questions remain, however, as to how secure the system is. The machines could reveal health conditions like heart murmurs and breathing problems as well as stress levels – which would be an invasion of privacy.
But Verrico says FAST has been through stringent privacy controls (pdf) and that the data is never matched to a name. It is only used to make decisions about whether to question someone, and then discarded.
For now. How long before we start keeping track of the data, you know, just in case? We know from experience that, just because they say they won’t do it now, doesn’t mean that they won’t do it in the future.
The trial technology was installed in a trailer because it is planned to be easily transportable, so that FAST trucks can appear at any sports or music event as required. They look set to become as regular a sight at such events as mobile toilets and catering trucks.
Except that mobile toilets and catering trucks don’t try to decipher what I am thinking or doing.
Despite the DHS telling us that it works, the system still had a 20% failure rate on actors who were told to pretend to be shifty. This system will only detect people who are stressed or annoyed at airports and border crossings, which is nearly everyone. But, maybe, that’s the point.
