Originally Posted by
realjd
Most likely on these devices, the image is only stored in volatile memory - RAM. Anything in RAM doesn't stick around. Once it's deleted, it's gone. I would be VERY surprised if the machines, as delivered to TSA, store the images to disk. Even if it does run Windows, it's probably one application that does all of the processing. Again, no need to store to disk.
As a fellow engineer I agree with this architectural approach - to store only in RAM. On the assumption that they don't need to produce the image at a future point in time for whatever purpose (to provide a legal basis for a further intrusive search, etc...) then storing in RAM is the way to go. In other words, I agree with
InkUnderNails comments about a business requirement existing for storage of images. Which is disappointing but I suspect reality.
Even RAM has its drawbacks - depending on the OS RAM can be written to disk. Which isn't as easy to extract contents from than a plan filesystem, but it's still an attack vector.