"Detecting suicide bombers in airport lobbies not a great thing: Airport scanners keep it anonymous"

Monday, March 14, 2005

Airport scanners keep it anonymous
Reuters 


The "suicide bomber" clips a shrapnel-filled belt around his waist and
buttons up his jacket to conceal it. 

As he turns back and forth in front of a semicircular white panel about the
size of a shower cubicle, a computer monitor shows the metal-packed
cylinders standing out clearly in white against his body. 

This is no real security alarm: It's a demonstration at the British
technology group Qinetiq of a scanning device that sees under people's
clothes to spot not just metal but other potential threats, like ceramic
knives or hidden drugs. 

The electromagnetic technology, known as Millimeter Wave, or MMW, is just
one aspect of a potential revolution in security screening being pioneered
at Qinetiq, formerly part of the research arm of the British defense
ministry. 

"Actually, detecting a suicide bomber in the lobby of an airport is not a
great thing to happen," Simon Stringer, the new managing director of
Qinetiq's security business, said with British understatement. 

"It's slightly better than having him do it in the departure lounge or
perhaps on the plane, but you're still doing to have to deal with a
significant problem," he said. 

That's why, he said, the trend for the future will be to move the scanners
outside the terminal building and operate them in "stand-off mode"--checking
people from a distance before they even set foot inside. 

The advantage is obvious: to spot potential attackers without alerting them
to the fact, and gain precious seconds for security forces to prevent an
attack. 

Are you sweating too much? 

Another prospect in store for air travelers is "hyperspectral sensing" that
will check for pheromones, chemicals secreted by the human body, which may
indicate agitation or stress. 

"People under stress tend to exude slightly different pheromones, and you
can pick this up...There are sensing techniques we're working on," Stringer
said. 

The stress may have an innocent cause, such as fear of flying, but could
also betray the nervousness of a potential attacker. The point is to alert
security staff to something unusual that may need further investigation. 

As with Millimeter Wave, the technology could function at a distance and
without the need for people to wait in line. By conducting such checks while
people are approaching the airport and moving through it, authorities could
avoid bottlenecks and queues. 

Suspicious movements 

As the passenger proceeds through the terminal, the next layer of
surveillance could be carried out through "cognitive software" that monitors
his or her movements and sounds a silent alarm if it picks up an unusual
pattern. 

"Someone who's been back in and out of the same place three times, or keeps
bumping into the same people, might be something that's worthy of further
investigation...I think that's really the sort of capabilities we're going
to be looking at," Stringer said in an interview. 

 While many of these technologies are still under development, others have
already been rolled out to clients by Qinetiq, which made group operating
profit of 28 million pounds ($53.9 million) in the six months to last
September. 

Millimeter wave, for example, has been tested at airports and, in a
different application, is being used by British immigration authorities and
Channel Tunnel operator Eurotunnel to detect illegal immigrants trying to
enter the country as stowaways in the back of trucks. 

Stringer said the potential market for Millimeter Wave runs into the
hundreds of millions of dollars and goes well beyond the transport sector. 

"We're spending quite a lot of time talking to multinationals who want to
establish perimeter security systems around plant, installations and
buildings," he said. 

Qinetiq--owned 30 percent by private equity group Carlyle and 56 percent by
the British government--expects rapid growth for its security business as it
gears up for a stock market launch. 

Big brother? 

But how will ordinary people embrace the prospect of surveillance technology
that sees through their clothes, checks how much they're sweating and tracks
their airport wanderings between the tax-free shops and the bathrooms? 

Stringer acknowledged that some might see this as George Orwell's Big
Brother come true. "There are always going to be issues of privacy here, and
they're not to be belittled, they're important," he said. 

But he said smarter technology will actually make the checks less intrusive
than those now in standard practice, such as being searched head to foot
after setting off a metal detector alarm. 

"Personally, I find that more irritating than the idea of someone just
scanning me as I walk through," he said. "You're under surveillance in
airports anyway. What you're looking at here is just being applied more
intelligently."


 Do you have an opinion about this story?
Share it with other readers in our CAA Discussion Forums

http://www.californiaaviation.org/dcfp/dcboard.php


*****************************************