Trusting technology: Security decision making at airports.

Security at airports heavily depends on the utilization of sophisticated technology for identifying threats. Yet the decisions about what to do next are dependent on interpretations made by employees. Analyzing data from a field survey of airport employees across European airports, we sought to identify how trust in security technology affects the implementation of security rules and regulations. An analysis of 514 respondents from surveys in eight airports in Europe demonstrated that compliance with security rules and protocols was related to two main categories of trust in technology: one oriented to the technology itself and the other to technology as a means of catching offenders. A further multivariate analysis showed that security decisions by each 'trusting' group tended to reflect its degree of commitment to the organizations' administrative guidelines and the organizations’ security attitude. It is demonstrated that this has implications for training and recruitment of security employees for airport security.