DHS Working with Google to Improve Screening Techniques at Airpots

The Department of Homeland Security is turning to data scientists to improve screening techniques at airports. On June 22, the department, working with Google, will introduce a $1.5 million contest to build computer algorithms that can automatically identify concealed items in images captured by checkpoint body scanners. The government is putting up the money, and the six-month contest will be run by Kaggle, a site that hosts more than a million data scientists that was recently acquired by Google. Although data scientists can apply any technique in building these algorithms, the contest is a way of capitalizing on the progress in a technology called deep neural networks, said the Kaggle founder and chief executive, Anthony Goldbloom. Neural networks are complex mathematical systems that can learn specific tasks by analyzing vast amounts of data.