America Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) introduced on Tuesday that it was scrapping a coverage requiring folks to take off their footwear whereas passing via airport screenings.
The coverage, lengthy a supply of ire for travellers, had its roots within the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, assaults on the US, when authorities sought to bolster safety round air travel via a bunch of measures.
Many extra guidelines have been added within the time since, some criticised as arbitrary and needlessly intrusive, and have been supplemented by the combination of measures comparable to facial scanning know-how at airports throughout the nation.
What’s behind the change, what guidelines stay, and will different insurance policies change subsequent?
STARS, STRIPES, AND SHOES ON! 🇺🇸👟
Below the management of @Sec_Noem, DHS is asserting a brand new coverage right now which can permit passengers touring via home airports to maintain their footwear on via safety screening at TSA checkpoints.
This coverage change will drastically… pic.twitter.com/clyk46RXvI
— Homeland Safety (@DHSgov) July 8, 2025
What was the ‘footwear off’ coverage?
The “footwear off” coverage was first applied by the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) in 2006 and required travellers to take away their footwear as they superior via airport safety screenings to verify them for potential explosives.
These enrolled in TSA PreCheck, a programme by which individuals who go a primary safety verify are allowed to bypass sure airport safety measures, had already been allowed to go via screenings with their footwear on.
Why was it applied?
The coverage was the results of a failed December 2001 assault by a British man named Richard Reid, who packed explosives into his footwear and tried to detonate them throughout a flight from Paris to Miami.
The incident, like many tried assaults carried out within the post-9/11 interval, was extremely novice: Reid, a petty felony who grew to become an Islamic fundamentalist, was foiled after an airline employee observed that he was making an attempt to mild his shoe on hearth with a match.
However the failed assault performed into fears that have been distinguished throughout the post-9/11 period. And, when it got here to security, why take an opportunity?
“TSA can’t simply depend on the subsequent assault being as incompetent as this one was,” Jay Stanley, a privateness advocate and senior coverage analyst on the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), informed Al Jazeera.
The company requested folks, on a voluntary foundation, to contemplate eradicating their footwear whereas passing via screening so that they might be checked for explosives. TSA later made the coverage obligatory in August 2006.
Why was the coverage scrapped?
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem mentioned in a press release on Tuesday that eliminating the coverage would take away a supply of pressure on travellers and cut back TSA wait instances at airports, and was now not crucial as a consequence of technological improvements.
“We anticipate this alteration will drastically lower passenger wait instances at our TSA checkpoints, resulting in a extra nice and environment friendly passenger expertise,” she mentioned.
The change was efficient instantly.
What different insurance policies stay in place, and will they modify?
Whereas the “no footwear” coverage is gone, travellers anticipating a simple, stress-free journey to the airport ought to mood their expectations as many different safety measures stay in place.
Passengers will, for instance, nonetheless need to take away their belts, coats, laptops, and sure gadgets from their baggage whereas passing via safety. Guidelines limiting gels and liquids in carry-on gadgets to three.4 ounces (100 ml) nonetheless apply, and checked baggage should even be subjected to X-ray screenings.
Canines used for detecting bombs and medicines are nonetheless steadily used, and full-body scanners have been delivered to airports after one other failed assault in December 2009, by which a person tried to detonate explosives smuggled onto a aircraft in his underwear.
Noem has steered that DHS is reviewing some guidelines, however didn’t supply additional particulars.
Are these measures efficient or simply safety theatre?
Travellers have lengthy fumed about an ever-growing checklist of measures that may appear arbitrary and don’t at all times have a transparent utility.
Whereas the federal government argues that the will increase in airport safety replicate efforts to patch up vulnerabilities uncovered by the 9/11 hijackers and subsequent failed assaults, some specialists say that sure measures present the impression of safety greater than provable advantages.
“Individuals are hesitant to push again towards new guidelines as a result of no one needs to be seen as accountable if there’s one other assault,” mentioned Stanley.
“Safety theatre has at all times been part of this, the place you make an enormous present of safety with a purpose to give folks the impression of larger security.”
However implementing so many guidelines may be tough for company staff themselves, who’ve the industrial-scale task of screening round two million travellers per day.
A 2015 report from the company’s inspector normal discovered that TSA officers had did not detect weapons, explosives and different prohibited gadgets introduced via safety by undercover brokers to check the effectiveness of the system in 95 % of instances.
Regardless of such considerations, TSA has continued to develop in measurement and scope every year. The company has a workforce of practically 63,000 folks and a funds that’s set to achieve greater than $11bn in 2025. In 2006, when “footwear off” was first applied, it was round $6bn.
What new applied sciences are being utilized in airport safety?
In her assertion, Noem mentioned that one of many causes that the “footwear off” coverage might be safely discarded is that “cutting-edge technological developments” have rendered it pointless.
One which travellers could have observed is the larger use of facial recognition know-how, a improvement some privateness advocates have considered with concern.
What are the privateness considerations?
Petra Molnar, a lawyer and writer of the guide, The Partitions Have Eyes: Surviving Migration within the Age of Synthetic Intelligence, informed Al Jazeera that in an period of heightening restrictions on motion, airports have grow to be testing grounds for brand spanking new applied sciences, with civil liberties a largely secondary concern.
“With more and more extra digital applied sciences used at borders, airports have grow to be epicentres of surveillance tech, with facial recognition and biometric applied sciences augmenting to bodily surveillance practices,” mentioned Molnar.
“Airports and borders are sometimes one of many first locations the place new surveillance applied sciences are examined out, typically with little regulation and oversight. Airports are the true testing grounds the place unregulated know-how experiments can run unchecked.”
Whereas the choice to scrap the “footwear off” coverage is a uncommon instance of airport safety measures being dialed again within the title of effectivity and comfort, it additionally comes at a time when these touring or returning to the US are more and more cautious of being pulled apart and questioned about their political views on matters comparable to Israel’s conflict in Gaza.
The administration of President Donald Trump just lately warned, for instance, that worldwide college students getting into the US should make their social media profiles out there for inspection by authorities.
“The purpose of safety measures ought to be to make sure that no one can get via this safety course of in the event that they pose a risk,” mentioned Stanley. “The issues begin when the federal government tries to classify folks by traits they imagine may make them a threat, and to do this, you must go into folks’s lives and discover out extra about them.”