"We need to get away from treating the travelling public as if all of them are equally liable to have terroristic tendencies and concentrate on folks we don't know much about," Tim Anderson, Minneapolis-St. Paul's deputy director of operations, said.
Many business travelers relish the idea -- according to one poll, almost three-quarters would be happy to pay US$100 to cut waiting times.
But civil liberties campaigners argue that there will be disadvantages for everyone: Those who do not join could be subjected to more intrusive searches, while those who give the government permission to access their backgrounds would not be able to guarantee the data would not be abused.
"We're not convinced the information will remain restricted -- the history of mission creep in the US is long and sordid," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the technology and liberty program at the American Civil Liberties Union.
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