TSA says it doesn't store traveler information after security ID checks at airports

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- At airports across the country, travelers step in front of a camera before heading to their gate.

In seconds, TSA's facial comparison technology confirms they're the person on their ID.

But once that checkpoint is cleared, TSA said that verification and information are gone. That raised questions for one woman who told ABC13 she was a victim of a theft inside Bush Intercontinental Airport.

PREVIOUS REPORT: Woman says her laptop was stolen as she went through TSA checkpoint at Bush airport

"I'm there looking around, looking on the left, looking on the right. Where is my laptop?" traveler Kathleen McCreavey said.

McCreavey said that while going through an additional security check at Terminal C at Bush Airport, surveillance video appears to show another traveler taking her laptop from a security bin, slipping it into a backpack, and walking away.

McCreavey said she immediately wondered why TSA couldn't identify the woman, who had just passed through the same checkpoint.

"I asked the TSA officer to check who was the lady. She was just behind me, and we had the first checkpoint," McCreavey said. "When you check your boarding pass, they know where you go. So they said, 'No, there is no recording data. We don't know which gate she's going. We don't know which flight or anything.' "

TSA said that's not what the technology is built to do.

"The data that machine collects, the photo is purely to make sure that the person that is coming into the checkpoint is the person that is giving us the ID," TSA Regional Spokesperson Eric Guthier said.

Guthier told ABC13 the agency's facial comparison system isn't designed to track travelers or create a record of who passes through security. He said its only job is to confirm that the person standing at the checkpoint matches the identification they're presenting.

Eyewitness News asked why that information isn't kept, especially in situations where it could help investigators after a crime.

"The information was never intended for any kind of law enforcement purpose. It's purely gathered to verify that the person who's coming in to the checkpoint is who they say they are and who is supposed to be there," Guthier said.

As for the stolen laptop, Houston Police said the case remains under investigation, and no arrests have been made.