Human Factors and Homeland Security

With the thwarted bombing above the skies of Detroit on Christmas Day by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and the inadvertent posting of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) “Screening Management Standard Operating Procedures” manual earlier this month, the issue of human factors and homeland security has once again come to the forefront.

As I noted in a previous post, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security realizes the importance of human factors on homeland security – also see “High Priority Technology Needs, May 2009″ (9.5 MB, .pdf).  Unfortunately, as the previous incidents illustrate, it’s a complex issue that still needs significant appropriate attention to solve.  Moreover, as Raja Parasuraman noted in the May 2003 issue (147 KB, .pdf) of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Bulletin:

“The recognition of HF/E as central to security initiatives represents a small but nevertheless significant victory.  Even more important will be to monitor developments to ensure that continual integration of HF/E into future technological and procedural initiatives aimed at boosting security in domains other than transportation.” (p. 6)

While progress has been made on the research side, additional work is still needed on the implementation side.  This is an opportunity for human factors and ergonomics practitioners to step forward and seek out opportunities to collaborate with government entities, security companies, etc. to assist with developing next-generation security technology and systems to ensure they will be appropriately designed to meet the needs of people while increasing security.