Basically, it randomly selected which lane (left or right) passengers should go into in a security line.
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If the app looks simple, that’s because it is. Other publicly available records show the app was part of a larger contract with IBM worth more than $1.4 million.
A write-up on TheNextWeb.com states a FOIA request returned to a curious developer this month reveals the iPad application cost $336,414.59 to create.
A randomizer app is one of the easiest things a coder can create, and it’s often one of the first things they’re trained to do when learning the process of coding. Cost-wise, Burke’s headline is a little more jaw-dropping: “The TSA Randomizer iPad App Cost $1.4 Million”. This figure might also include the cost of the iPads used to run the app in 150 airports across the US.
As the website reported: “The app was used by TSA agents to randomly assign passengers to different pre-check lines as part of a now-discontinued program called ‘managed inclusion'”.
A TSA spokesperson told Mashable the total development cost for the randomiser app was $47,400.
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The randomnesses would make it tougher for would-be terrorists to identify security-screening patterns they would use for their benefit, Bloomberg explains, and helped dispel the appearance of profiling. The program ended over ‘security concerns’.
