Searching for the X-Factor
with their palm-size explosive detector. they look the part and interact with
Their hand-held product is developed the world around them as you would
to ruggedised, heavy-duty with dual- expect a typical package holiday family
mode explosives and narcotics trace & to do. Screening everybody as though
vapour detection capabilities. MS Tech’s they are all exactly the same is not
patented HF-QCM Sensor Technology good security.” Baum also makes
is capable of learning to recognise new another good point. “It is all very well
substances - thereby enabling it to being able to identify liquid in a bottle
adapt to new threats. The device can but what happens where the liquid
detect trace amounts of both gaseous is concealed elsewhere and not put
and liquid materials. It is also designed through the scanner?”
for high-traffic checkpoints and mass Steve Wolff agrees. Like Baum, he
transit sites by providing real-time is adamant though that the current
analysis in less than five seconds. system of screening everybody
Ahura Scientific’s TruScreen But trace detection has its limitations. indiscriminately is not effective, as he
For example, if a terrorist takes suitable puts it, “One-size-fits-all puts a huge
are desktop sized machines or larger, precautions while assembling the burden on the operators, regardless
the Ahura device has the advantage device - such as wearing a protective of the technology. Segregating
that it is hand-held and therefore fully suit or gloves - trace detection systems, passengers into low, unknown and
portable. even those as advanced as MS Tech’s high risk categories and screening
Another common explosive and others, probably would have a hard each differently makes more sense; if
detection approach used in airports time to detect anything suspicious. operators know a passenger is high
is based around trace detection In addition sniffer devices will not risk, they will pay more attention.”
technology. The technique relies detect anything inside a sealed bottle. Norman Shanks points to the
on tiny particles of the materials In such situation it relies on there main problem of over-reliance on
that have been used to construct a having been some form of leakage or technological security approaches,
bomb remaining on a person’s skin or contamination. X-ray technology does “Security has always been very easy to
clothing. When someone prepares a not have this limitation. ratchet up,” he says, “but it is very hard
bomb, vapours and/or particles from So there is a lot of new kit on to ratchet it back down.”
the market for combating the new Realistically it seems likely that for the
“
...security has always threat from liquid explosives. But, is foreseeable future both technological and
it the answer? With the now common passenger profiling will be deployed to
been very easy to knowledge that peroxide based scan for the bad guys. But at the end of
explosives are easy to make and hard the day it is impossible to legislate against
ratchet up, but it is very to detect, are technological solutions every threat. As Peter Kant points out,
the right approach? Some people think there are at least three oxygen bottles
hard to ratchet it back that they are not and that the passenger aboard every aircraft that flies. Also, of
profiling approach is inherently better. course, the 9/11 terrorists were armed
down...” “Most of the technologies have with nothing more lethal than box-cutters
not been proven to work in a live and yet managed to pull off the biggest
the explosive materials get onto their operational environment” says Philip terrorist atrocity in history. In these
skin, hair or clothing. One version of Baum, Managing Director of Green situations passenger profiling must be the
this technology is called a “puffer.” Light Security, “whereas [passenger] way to go, supported, where appropriate,
The device blows a quick blast of air profiling has been proven to work both with technology.
all around a person walking through in identifying terrorists and those duped As Abdulla Ahmed Ali, Assad Sarwar
the scanner. Whatever comes off the by terrorists as well as on a daily basis and Tanvir Hussain start their life sentences,
person is sucked into the machine, by Customs and Immigration. Bombs they probably have other things to worry
which analyses it for trace residue from have never been identified by X-ray about than the fact that they have started
an explosive device. Another type of machines alone but they have been a new industry based on the detection
trace-detection technology uses swabs found by people who have identified of liquid explosives. But the truth is that
to wipe carry-on baggage to check for suspect intent. The problem is that they have left us with a darker legacy;
any bomb-making residue. The swab is we try and screen everybody using because by highlighting the new danger
inserted into a machine that analyses the same technologies rather than of an old technology it is sadly likely that
any particles pulled off the bag. screening different passenger types we have not heard the last of the peroxide
The Israeli company MS Tech and using different technologies. I don’t explosive threat yet.
its MS Detection Division is currently see any reason why a family going
working on a novel nanotechnology on holiday to Lanzarote needs to be The author is a freelance scientific
sensor fusion approach to be integrated screened by a [high-tech] device if journalist based in the UK.
32 Register now for FREE instant access to ASI online by visiting
www.asi-mag.com December 2009 Aviationsecurityinternational
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