Israeli Aviation Security Expert Calls TSA's Behavioral Detection Skills 'Worthless'
Skift Take
As part of El Al's techniques, employees ask passengers a flurry of seemingly random questions before they get to the ticket counter, looking for holes in their stories or deception. If trained properly, U.S. airlines would do well in emulating the practice for security's sake.
A former security director for Israeli state airline El Al says the manner in which the United States' Transportation and Security Administration carries out behavior-detection activities at U.S. airports is "worthless." This criticism comes on the heels of a Government Accountability Office study that found that such behavioral techniques as practiced by the TSA were little better than "chance" in rooting out terrorists.
Isaac Yeffet, a security consultant who served as security director of El Al from 1977 to 1984 and later was deputy director of security operations for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, tells Skift he is a strong proponent of behavior detection, but faults how the TSA is implementing it.
"They do it like l
