WASHINGTON – Children 12 years old and younger soon will no longer be required to remove their shoes at airport security checkpoints, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told Congress on Tuesday. The policy also includes other ways to screen young children without resorting to a pat-down that involves touching private areas on the body.

Napolitano said during a Senate hearing on the terror threat to the U.S. that the changes would be rolled out in the coming months. But the Transportation Security Administration later said the changes would be rolled out in weeks rather than months.

Napolitano said there may be some exceptions to keep airport security unpredictable. Terrorists have plotted to use children as suicide bombers, and some children still may be required to remove their shoes to keep security random.

“There will always be some unpredictability built into the system, and there will always be random checks even for groups that we are looking at differently, such as children,” she said.

Many travelers have complained that the TSA does not use common sense when it screens all air travelers the same way, including young children and the elderly. Criticism escalated last year when the government began using a pat-down more invasive than what had been used in the past, one that involves feeling a traveler’s genital and breast areas.

TSA Administrator John Pistole had called for a more aggressive pat-down for air travelers when he took over the agency last year because he thought it gave screeners the best chance at stopping a suicide bomber like the one who nearly brought down an airliner over Detroit in 2009 with a bomb in his pants.

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