TSA Plans to Roll Out New Scanners That Don't Require Taking Laptops Out of Bags

You can cross removing your laptop from your carry-on bag from the list of things to worry about when boarding a plane.

A report by Bloomberg indicates that the Transportation Security Adminstration will be updating their current scanners at many airport security checkpoints to ones that utilize computed tomography (or CT). This development means that passengers will no longer be required to take their laptops and toiletrees out of their carry-on luggage. The widespread roll out of these scanners is slated to begin this summer.

Gizmodopointed out that the technology has been tested at several airports around the country, including John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, since 2017. The current x-ray technology is only capable of creating a 2-D image, often requiring further inspection of certain items. With CT, it is possible to create a 3-D image of the items, making it easy to identify which items have to come out of the bag, if necessary. The purpose of this technology is to allow TSA personnel to "see beyond unwanted clutter," making it possible to properly identify the contents of a piece of luggage.

While this may be an instrumental step in solving the issue streamling the boarding process, the TSA recently had to deal with other mishaps. Within the last year, the agency was affected by the infamous government shutdown, which led to an obscene amount of employee call-outs, as workers were forced to work with no pay. Many believed that the security of airports had been compromised. In addition, despite the constant warnings, the issue of passengers packing firearms is still prevalent, as a record-breaking 4,239 firearms were seized in 2018 alone.