Review - HR 1648 Introduced – Smart Airports

Last month, Rep Nehls (R,TX) introduced HR 1648, the Airport Technology and Efficiency Improvement Act of 2023. The bill would require the DOT’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to establish a new pilot grant program “to support the acquisition and installation of ‘internet of things’ technologies by airports to create a more consumer-friendly and digitally connected airport experience.” The bill would authorize $5 million per year through 2029 to support the program.

Moving Forward

Nehls is a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that there could be sufficient influence to see this bill considered in Committee. Other than the new spending authorized by the bill (which is generally going to be problematic in the 118^th Congress), I see nothing in this bill that would engender any organized opposition. I suspect that the bill would pass with some level of bipartisan support (with most of the opposition coming from Nehls’ fellow Republicans) in committee and on the floor of the House if it made it that far.

Commentary

It is disappointing to see a bill at this late date that encourages (funds) the use of IoT devices in the public transportation sector without including at least a mention of needing to include basic cybersecurity protections for those devices. Nehls’ staff even included a privacy hat-tip in their inclusion of the subsection (d) prioritization of grants that “of grants to “projects that do not collect facial and biometric data of passengers not identified as a security threat”, but they forgot the large issue of general cybersecurity protections that would help guarantee those privacy concerns.

At a minimum, I would have changed the wording of subsection (b) to read:

“(b) Eligible Projects.—The Administrator may make a grant under the Program only for a project that facilitates the acquisition and installation by an airport of sensor systems, software, passenger signals, or other technologies, including cybersecurity protections for those systems, consistent with the purposes of the Program, including projects that facilitate­­­”

For more details about the provisions of the bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-1648-introduced - subscription required.