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by John W. Simek, Vice President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc.

TSA Approved Biometric Luggage Lock

April 18, 2019

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. This can be the gift to give someone that has everything or it could be a really bad idea. At first blush, I’ll lean towards the latter. Believe it or not, you can now buy a TSA approved biometric luggage lock on Amazon. It will only set you back $55.99. At that price you should be able to buy at least six or more TSA approved combination luggage locks. Despite the high cost, let me say that I think these locks are a bad idea. Storing biometric data about you on a device that is generally accessible to strangers can’t be a good thing. Even at $56, you know the bad guys will find a way to easily capture your biometric data and use it against you.

The ironic part of this product is that you can’t (shouldn’t) use the lock for checked baggage. The lock needs power to keep the biometric data intact. Guess what? The lock requires a lithium battery to power up the electronics. In case you don’t know, lithium batteries are banned from the plane’s luggage hold. Somehow I don’t think that is going to deter anyone from strapping one of these hi-tech locks on their checked baggage. After all, they’re probably the same people that text and drive. Frankly, it makes you wonder how TSA could even approve the device.

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