The Government Accountability Office assessed the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), responsible for aviation safety agency and responsible for the SPOT program. It is used to identify indicators of "malicious" behavior that may pose a risk in the airport system.

The program was created in 2007 and settled in some airports in the country with the aim of detecting "persons with intent to harm." But, according to the Watchdog, SPOT does not have "any scientific validation" and "lacks performance."

The auditors, which analyzed data from 2011 and 2012, visited four airports where the SPOT system -which employs 2,800 workers- is implemented, and 25 officers who observe behavior detection.

In its investigation, the audit team concluded that the performance indicators used by the TSA through this program are "not helpful" to identify persons who may pose a risk to aviation.

In fact, the GAO said that "the capacity of human beings to accurately identify deceptive behavior based on behavioral indicators is the same or slightly better than chance."

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also did an analysis to assess SPOT, but the indicators do not demonstrate efficacy because it has "unreliable data". This situation is the fact that 21 of the 25 screening officers said that "some indicators are subjective."

Faced with the criticism both by the GAO and DHS, the Administration of Transportation Safety, which spends 200 million dollars annually in this system, conducted a study in 2011 to demonstrate the effectiveness of its program which said that "SPOT was more likely to correctly identify high-risk passengers (such as those with false documents), rather than through a random selection."

However, the affirmation of the TSA was not enough for the US Audit. It is that the supervisory authority maintains that "the Transportation Security Administration survey data was collected unevenly" because airport activity as both aviation and quantity of passengers, is not constant throughout the year.

Fun Fact

The media Buzzfeed published a note in which parodies the operation of the program, which -in other terms- the officers can distinguish a tired or nervous person from someone doing something wrong. "Who is not nervous before getting on a plane?" They ask.