DOCUMENTATION CONTROL
ENHANCED
AN AVIATION SECURITY
PERSPECTIVE The recent high-profile news story
about the foiling by intelligence agents of a new, and allegedly improved, “underwear bomb” with, as reports suggest, a considerably more advanced detonation system than the one used by Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab in December 2009, should give us all cause for concern. Security experts have rightly voiced their concerns that
screening methods.
current aviation security Beyond
carriage, we will need to recognise the limitations of our current detection capability while we work hard to close identifiable gaps and continue to advance our technologies and procedures.
Shifting Focus: From Detection to Identification
the new device would be exceptionally difficult to detect using
the calls for a wider adoption of backscatter X-ray and/ or passive millimetre wave screening, many experts are already calling for transmission X-ray machines to be deployed to deal with these
emerging threats – particularly as a countermeasure for the detection of concealed or internally-carried improvised explosive or incendiary
devices. unprecedented focus I
n the past decade, there has been an
o n
the security and integrity of the aviation industry, with intense scrutiny on how passengers and crews are screened at the airport security checkpoint. Owing to a number of catastrophic (and near catastrophic) events, such focus and scrutiny is both inevitable and understandable. However, much of this focus has centred on “detection” – the ability to detect known and emerging threats; the ability to detect components of improvised explosive devices; the detection of weapons, threat items and prohibited articles; and, latterly, the detection of liquid-based explosive compounds. Yet with each new layer of detection technologies and techniques come new threats.
36 And in this context, it is often useful
to remind ourselves – and certainly those charged with the responsibility of regulating our industry – that metal detectors detect metal; nothing more, nothing less.
Their
deployment was, at the time, a relatively effective countermeasure to the known and recurring threat of hijack and sabotage in the days when the weapons of choice were guns and grenades, rather than more complex IEDs, and before the aircraft itself was used as a weapon. Advances in cabin baggage screening equipment will allow for an enhanced detection capability of weapons and potential threat items that could be concealed in a passenger’s carry-on luggage.
But as we
recognise the growing threat of more sophisticated devices such as the new underwear bomb and more sophisticated concealment techniques, including internal
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While the challenges are great and many, there is already much we can do to plan, prepare and respond to them. Importantly, one of the fundamental principles underlying each of the new threats is the need to focus on “bad people, not bad objects”. And it is this principle that requires us to make the shift from detection to “identification”. The idea in and of itself is nothing new and is routinely quoted by senior government officials and industry thought leaders in response to questions about the future direction the industry is supposed to be taking. But the harsh reality is that we are still focusing far more on detection than identification. We need to urgently correct this imbalance so that the aviation security process can become a smart, intelligence- led, outcome-focused and results-based set of procedures that enhance security, increase throughput and improve the passenger experience.
Perhaps the best example of the lack of focus on identification within aviation security is the simple fact that passengers, to all intents and purposes, are “unknown entities” when they proceed through the screening checkpoint. Today, there are exceptionally few instances of passenger document data being captured or used at the screening checkpoint. In our view, this is a fundamental shortcoming of current screening requirements. At
the border, document data is
captured and analysed; documents are verified for their authenticity; biographic data is checked against government warning indices (watchlists) and questions are asked of the passenger to better understand their purpose of travel, their intended period of stay and, more broadly,
June 2012 Aviationsecurityinternational
Matthew Finn argues the case for a greater focus on passenger identity if we truly wish to detect passengers with negative intent rather than just those being in the possession of prohibited items.
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