This isn't new. The electronic check-in options offered by many carriers at several airports already do this. You get the 2D barcode image and they scan it at the checkpoint and again at the gate. I used it this past weekend at IAH and AUS.

The barcode data is signed with the airline's private key. Yes, it could be hacked eventually, depending on the amount of data out there, but it isn't trivial.

It will defeat folks from printing their own BPs at home and changing the date/name/city. But that still doesn't provide actual security.

And in the USA the airlines are the ones driving it, IMO. They want to provide the option to their customers and that means pushing the TSA to allow it. The TSA is trying to spin it as good for security and as them doing something proactive, neither of which is true. But the USAToday was willing to print the article.