Bomb Body Politics: On the TSA's Algorithmic Policing of Gender

Abstract

Long before FAccT or ProPublica’s COMPAS reporting or Andrew Ferguson's book, the Department of Homeland Security was using sexist, racist algorithms to determine who to subject to additional screening. The algorithms that were built into these technologies are used to justify the systems of policing that were already in place. In this essay adapted from remarks delivered at the Technology, Media, Privacy, and the Law Conference in 2022, the TSAs discriminatory practices against transgender people serve as a cautionary tale for surveillance reformers who risk entrenching violence against the "wrong" bodies to protect the "right" ones.