{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/transportation-security-screeners/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Transportation Security Screeners",
    "soc_code": "33-9093",
    "category": "Protective Service",
    "us_employment": 50290,
    "median_annual_wage": 66770
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 41,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 8,
    "embodiment": 14,
    "liability_shield": 5,
    "trust_premium": 6,
    "judgment_accountability": 8
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "An 8 reflects that roughly half the shift — bag divestiture instruction, X-ray/CT image review, body scanner reads — is already machine-flagged under Automated Threat Recognition, while the bag-open searches, ETD swabs, and pat-downs still require a person at the table, so the job is genuinely mixed rather than gone.",
    "embodiment": "A 14 is earned by work performed standing in an open public terminal for full shifts — lifting and re-running heavy checked bags, physically touching strangers during pat-downs, kneeling to search wheelchairs and child carriers, and dealing with whatever spills, sharps, or lithium batteries come out of a bag — none of it in a fixed controlled workstation.",
    "liability_shield": "A 5 rather than a 12 because TSA screeners hold a federal certification and recurrent proficiency testing under ATSA rather than a state licence, and when a screening failure or missed item occurs, the exposure lands on TSA and the agency's supervisory chain, not on the individual officer's personal credential.",
    "trust_premium": "A 6 recognises that passengers interact with whoever is at the front of the line, with no ongoing relationship and no reason to prefer one officer — the only relational value is the same-shift trust of the STSO and fellow officers who rely on your bag calls and your pat-down consistency.",
    "judgment_accountability": "An 8 fits because SOPs prescribe the alarm-resolution steps, the pat-down sequence, and the referral thresholds, but you still decide whether behaviour detection warrants escalation, when to call a bag suspicious and evacuate the lane, and how to handle a passenger refusing screening — real discretion inside written procedure, not ownership of an open-ended call."
  },
  "rationale": "The image-interpretation half of this job — spotting prohibited items in X-ray and CT bag scans, reading millimeter-wave body scanner outputs — is exactly what computer vision does well, and automated threat recognition is already deployed on checkpoint CT and body scanners, shrinking screeners to alarm-resolution. What survives is physical: opening and hand-searching bags, pat-downs, swabbing for explosive trace, managing crowds and non-compliant travelers, and de-escalating with distressed or disabled passengers. Federal certification and statutory staffing rules slow attrition, but the ratio of screeners per lane falls as machines flag and humans only clear.",
  "outlook": "Checkpoints stay staffed by federal employees through the 2030s, but automated threat recognition steadily cuts screeners per lane, pushing the workforce toward pat-downs, bag searches, and supervision.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "As automated threat recognition (already on Analogic/Smiths checkpoint CT and Advanced Imaging Technology body scanners) clears the routine tier, the remaining shift is alarm resolution, hand-search, ETD swabbing and pat-down of ambiguous anomalies — a genuine two-tier job where the residual tier is physical and interpersonal, not image reading. Watch TSA's per-lane staffing standards and ATR false-alarm rates: high nuisance-alarm rates keep human resolvers on every lane.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "embodiment",
        "change": "If TSA formalizes screener roles around pat-downs, private-screening rooms, and accommodation of passengers with prosthetics, medical devices, service animals and disabilities (already governed by TSA Cares and DHS civil-rights settlements), the surviving task set is almost entirely unpredictable physical contact with resisting or distressed humans.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Statutory floor rather than personal liability: 49 U.S.C. 44901 requires federal screening of all checked and carry-on baggage, and TSA's own directives require a certified screener to resolve every machine alarm before a bag or person is cleared. If TSA codifies in a Standard Operating Procedure or a Screening Checkpoint Requirements document that no ATR alarm may be cleared by algorithm alone — the aviation analogue of the pilot-in-command rule — the human sign-off becomes mandatory per alarm. Also watch AFGE Council 100's collective bargaining agreement (restored 2022, contested 2025) for minimum-staffing-per-lane language.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "If the role shifts from image review to behavior detection and adjudication — SPOT/Behavior Detection Officer duties, deciding whether to refer a passenger to law enforcement, denying boarding, ordering secondary screening — the screener owns consequential calls under ambiguity with post-incident review exposure. Watch whether TSA re-expands behavior-detection staffing after its earlier GAO-criticized contraction, and whether Federal Air Marshal / LEO referral authority is delegated further down.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "No realistic route to a trust premium: passengers are captive, do not choose their screener, and largely prefer less human contact — CLEAR, PreCheck and touchless ID all sell the removal of the human. Privatized SPP airports compete on throughput and cost, not on human screeners. Federal headcount is a budget line set by Congress and appropriations, so total employment can fall sharply even with every lever above intact; these levers protect the role's content, not its numbers."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 42470,
        "wage": 40580
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 45250,
        "wage": 41490
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 46730,
        "wage": 41770
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 46850,
        "wage": 44300
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 48320,
        "wage": 45470
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 47550,
        "wage": 47710
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 47950,
        "wage": 50020
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 46340,
        "wage": 63360
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 50290,
        "wage": 66770
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 18.4,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}