CD Traveller » airport security

Airport Security Hassle

adrian — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 07:35:55 +0000

Heathrow Terminal 3

Almost coinciding with the tenth anniversary of 9/11, this week London has been hosting the Transport Security Expo. Here, topics such as the security problems we all face at airports have been discussed. How long might it be, for example, before we don’t have to empty our pockets of coins, take belts and shoes off unpack laptops and only carry liquids in small containers?
The good news is that technology is around that will enable just that. The bad news is that it still requires tweaking – for want of a better word – and then it needs governments and airports to introduce it. Gillian Ormiston and Yotam Marggalit from a company you will never have heard of, Morpho Detection, gave one presentation that foreshadowed that, in the future, we will just be able to seamlessly walk through an airport with hardly a pause. It seems like Nirvana. And all in a secure environment where technology will replace people who spend hours assessing risks for the benefit or airline – and port – passengers.
It is a daunting thought that over 40% of all the people who work in airports are there for some security purpose. By the end of April 2016, in EU countries at least, we should not have to limit ourselves to small bottles of liquids in our hand luggage. Any size container should be fine. But what of the rest? At some airports now you no longer have to remove shoes. At others, laptop bags are acceptable. But belts, jackets, coins, keys, mobile phones still present problems. So when might that alter? When might this seemless situation be available to all of us who have had to face frustrating delays all in the name of enhanced security? And accepted it I the belief that those introduced requirements have helped make us safer which is more and more being questioned.
Gillian Ormiston suggests that, although the technology to handle most of the problems, we are still a few years from returning to the speedier security days before 9/11. So there is no early return to normality – whatever that is.

Making Life Easier for Airline Passengers

adrian — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 08:24:42 +0000

Passenger Terminal Expo 2011

In Copenhagen this week is a three day conference (Passenger Terminal Expo) where airport and airline suppliers sell their wares. Theoretically what makes it easier for them should make it easier for the passenger to get through what has become, for many of us, the bane of travel. It used to be check-in queues. Now it is security and having to walk or be bussed, miles to where the aircraft is parked. So is there anything at this conference that offers hope for us?

From a Norwegian company called Easy Roller comes a wheelchair with no metal parts meaning that the indignity of frisking most wheelchair passengers could be ended. Unless they are carrying metal or suspicious objects in which case they will show up in the normal way. But it should speed up the process of vetting wheelchair passengers.

You can use mobile phones to hold boarding passes as well as web systems. The more we can print or create ourselves the faster we get through check-in queues. Personally I have been hardly held up in a queue for more than a few minutes since I prefer to use kiosks at the airport or my computer. As with a number of other industries, mobile phone technology is bounding ahead. NCR developed a mobile phone technology for boarding passes for Swiss with the result that 120,000 mobile boarding passes were used in just 3 months and at 32 airports around the world. The system is used for check-in and baggage drop, tax-free shops and boarding gates. It is also one less thing to lose as you go through the airport. At present Skyteam, the airline alliance estimates that just 5% of check-ins are done using mobile phones.

As an alternative to a mobile phone application, another company, IER of France is providing a RFID chip attached to the back of a mobile phone or something equally similar like a credit card that we tend to look after more closely than paper. The token can be waved over a check-in machine and hey presto; you’re checked in. It will speed up boarding as you will just pass the token across a machine instead of showing it to someone at the gate and, theoretically, you shouldn’t to show it to cabin crew when you get in a plane.

There are different bits of equipment to ease security queues like a special machine that you walk through instead of taking of your shoes. But all is cutting seconds rather than minutes and it is the security side of things that takes the time these days. Cees de Vos from Skyteam thinks that biometrics might play a bigger role in speeding up the security and boarding process but that is in the future.
One thing that I was unaware of was the complexity of baggage handling systems. The amount of money that has gone in to making systems efficient is surprisingly high because it is a complex issue. We think of loaders unloading baggage and putting them onto conveyor belts that we retrieve them from. There is so much more and, as a new system is being installed by the new owners of Gatwick, we hope to have more on this later.

A week is a Long Time in Travel

adrian — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 09:24:21 +0000

This time last week the Chairman of British Airways, Martin Broughton, was headline news with his comments about unnecessary security and kowtowing to US requirements. (CD-Traveller 28th October.) Today the news is of how terrorists have become sophisticated enough to create devices which evaded checking at Doha, Dubai and East Midlands airports. Initially, it looked as though the problem lay with security for cargo flights only but now it transpires that the package went on at least two passenger flights from Sanaa in Yemen to Doha in Qatar and then from Doha to Dubai as unaccompanied baggage. Needless to say security is being reviewed and there have been calls to tighten security at least for cargo shipments.
Will Broughton’s comments now be quietly ignored?
I hope not. Tourism is booming in many parts of the world. Aruba has had nearly a 20% increase in tourists from the UK this year despite an overall drop in us visiting the Caribbean. Vietnam had an increase of over third and is planning that the figure jumps from 3 7 million to 12 million in the next 5 years. Tourism to Macau is up by 50% over last year and Singapore’s has jumped by 18%. The list goes on. Up until May, India received an additional 11% more visitors, Germany 9%, Netherlands 11% Poland and Turkey both had a 7% increase and the USA had a 15% growth. Passenger air traffic is September was up by 10% over this time last year but the Middle East saw growth of over a fifth.
Travel and tourism has bounced back strongly after the recession. That shows confidence and leads to economic growth. Making it less difficult to travel because of unnecessary security controls will help that growth especially since, as of today, we have large increases in APD to bear. (CD-Traveller 27th October) That may deter travel more than security.
So as the experts look at tightening up cargo examinations, I hope they’ll remember that there could be some relaxation in vetting passengers without compromising safety.

The Bodyscanner Debate Goes On

Editor — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 05:30:12 +0000

On the face of it, the use of bodyscanners to deter terrorists or, to put it another way, to make us feel that we are as protected as possible when we fly, is something that few would argue with. But all is not simple and there are many justifiable objections to them, not the least of which is privacy. And health risks. And whether the machines work.
Recently EPIC, Electronic Privacy Information Center, a US body took a lawsuit against the US Marshals Service which is the authority that runs the machines. As a result of this they were able to find that body images were being kept despite assurances to the contrary. They have received 100 images of undressed individuals (as they put it) which is a sample of the 35,000 that the US government has admitted to having. AS EPIC says, this proves that the machines can store images. We, as travellers, were told none would be kept. The Department of Homeland Security documents released as a result of this show that the department instructed its officers to store and transmit images. Again, we as travellers were not told this. Now EPIC is returning to court to stop the scanners being introduced elsewhere.
A Las Vegas company, Flying Pasties Inc, is now producing patches you can cover the more private parts of your body with. Why? If they stop the officials checking you all they are going to do is slow things down while they ask you to remove them!
At the same time, it appears that it takes 5 times as long for a person to go through the machine as it does going through the normal metal detector according to a report in US Today. We were told that there would be no real increases in time so, if true, this has implications for security lines and how long we turn up before a flight.
The EU, some countries in the Middle East like Dubai and others who haven’t publically said so, is concerned by the side effects on our health. Some have argued that because most of us travel rarely, any effect would be minimal. But what about frequent travellers? Having been lied to once by the US authorities, can you believe them when they say there is no problem?
Finally there is the issue of whether they work. The same department has admitted, according to Travelmole, a travel industry newsletter, that they don’t know whether the system would have detected the person who tried to blow up a jet bound for Detroit last Christmas Day.
I don’t know the answers nor do most passengers. We just want something that works, is safe and doesn’t make travelling any less disagreeable than it already is. But who do we believe?

Airport Security – Again

adrian — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 08:14:40 +0000

Twice I flew from Heathrow’s terminal 1 this week. Twice I had breakfast as I was on early flights. On each occasion I had breakfast, it was after I had cleared security since you’re never quite sure how long it might take. And I had breakfast in two different restaurants, neither of which would set your gastronomic juices on fire. But that rumbling is for another day.

In both restaurants, I was given stainless steel cutlery.

For some time you only had plastic or wooden cutlery after you had gone through security. After all, we were trying to reduce any terrorism possibilities. So when did we, or at least terminal 1, allow metal cutlery back into use? The attempted terrorist attack last Christmas Day is only 5 weeks old. We have had arguments over body scanners since then and what else could be done. Not reintroducing metal cutlery wasn’t something I ever heard mentioned.

Can it be any wonder that travellers are confused. Shoes on or off; belts on or off. You can’t take tweezers, nail files or nail clippers through but after you’ve passed security, help yourself to any number of knives you like. On my table in one of the restaurants I even had a vase full of them so I could select the one I preferred!

Passengers are getting a little tired of the double standards that security authorities, governments or whoever it is are imposing. And now the home secretary has said that he has increased the UK terror threat level to “severe” meaning an attack could be likely but there is no intelligence to suggest it is imminent. We are all to be extra vigilant.

Why bother when the authorities can’t even sort the simple things out.

Ban Duty Free Alcohol & Perfume Sales

Editor — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 08:15:55 +0000

This view comes not from anyone in the UK but from two German trades unions. According to Der Spiegel’s online news service,(www.spiegel.de) the head of the German police union and the head of the pilots union have both called for bans on the sale of liquids like perfume and alcohol because of their potentially lethal use. Alcohol is inflammable and exists in perfumes as well as the bottles of spirits we buy.

The police union chief, Rainer Wendt, claims that once a passenger clears security checks and gets airside, everything a terrorist needs to build a contraption can be found in the duty free and restaurant areas.

True or not, this ban is unlikely to happen. Airports and airlines make far too much money for duty free sales to forego the revenue. A security expert, Wolfgang Spyra, suggested that people pre-order their items and have them delivered on arrival so that they cannot be taken on board any flight. This seems more logical if any steps along this way of thinking need to be taken. At the airports of BAA and Gatwick you can order items and collect them when you return. The main benefit is that it saves lugging the bottles and boxes around with you. It is also of great benefit if you are going to a destination where the duty free range isn’t as wide as it is in this country. Anyone who has tried to buy duty free at smaller US airports (and JFK and Newark in New York now I come to think of it) wouldn’t have half the range we have at most British airports. So under this idea, the airports would still be happy but the airlines would lose revenue.

But if alcohol or liquids are potentially lethal, should they be carried on flights? If you follow the argument, yes but this is totally impractical as you need liquids to keep hydrated as you fly, particularly on long haul flights. Maybe just alcohol should be banned then because that doesn’t contribute to hydration.

But hang on a minute. In October (CD-Traveller 24/10/09) we talked about Hilbert spectroscopy, a test developed by German scientists that could identify the liquids we carry on flights. Still awaiting a commercial backer, couldn’t this help cut down the risks?

And which non Islamic country based airline is going to be the first to try that?

Air Security Changes

Editor — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 09:26:41 +0000

Following the attempted attack on the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit it will come as no surprise to any of you that’s security at airports and on planes has been increased.

You can expect to take longer going through security as more hand searches are carried out. Don’t be surprised when you gate to the actual gate to find that a hand pat security check may also take place. Instead of it happening on just a few flights, as is done at the present, you can expect it to occur more often particularly on flights going to the US.

It also appears that the airlines are tightening up on the number of items you can take into the cabin. The notional limit is one but many airlines have turned a blind eye to this. Now there are reports that only one bag will be allowed and that includes any duty free bags. It might be useful to have one of those bags that folds flat but when opened up in pretty large. Then, after going through security, you can pack any duty free and your single bag that you brought through security into just the one bigger bag.

Last August, I think, the US relaxed rules on carrying lighters on planes. I think you can expect that to be re- imposed. This year they were hoping to relax the rules on the amount of liquids you can carry on board. That may not now happen. Some media reports say that blankets and pillows have been withdrawn so that the cabin crew can see anything that might be on your lap so be prepared not to necessarily find these on your seat on long haul journeys. The “backscatter” machines that suposedly take an almost nude scan of your body might be more introduced more widely since these are reputed to be able to pick up anything that might be attached to your body.

So for at least the foreseeable future you ought to consider getting to the airport earlier than you previously might have done. Expect more security checks and expect your flights to be delayed as security systems around the world try to cope with the additional checks that will be imposed.

UPDATE. 3.01.2010 The British Government has announced that body scanners will be more widely intorduced. Heathrow has said they will have them there as soon as practicable. Manchester has been trialling a bodyscanner for some time.

Carrying Liquids on Flights.

adrian — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 06:04:33 +0000

Not being a bedtime reader of the magazine Superconductor Science and Technology, I would have missed a story completely without the BBC catching it and running the story about Hilbert spectroscopy. Without being scientific, let me summarise the jist of the piece.

Using cheap and light materials, this system enables a range of liquids to be identified in about one fifth of a second. This means that those liquids we carry on planes in little plastic bags can be analysed so quickly that we could carry larger volumes with us because it seems the volume of liquid we carry doesn’t slow the ability of the system to work out what the liquid is. So not carrying liquids on flights could be coming to an end. That’s the good news.

The not so good news is that the scientists who have developed this in Germany have yet to get the system into commercial use so it could be a while before it becomes available. But they believe it could be integrated with some fairly easily available existing kit.

Given that these days the security queues at airports are often longer than the check-in ones, you would hope that equipment manufacturers and airports would be beating a path to the scientists so that we could get suitable equipment into airports as soon as possible.

Got a Toeprint?

adrian — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 08:39:52 +0000

We’ve known for some time that security systems will toughen. Now we have helpful guidance from the European Union on what will be expected.

I am grateful to the Datanomy Googlegroup and Jeremy Phillips in particular for guidance on how the EU sees the subject of fingerprints.

Ready and sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

The Visa information system must have the fingerprint images of ten fingers. If a finger or fingers is missing, these shall be identified and the remaining fingers, if any, shall be used. As Phillips notes, if there aren’t any fingers what are you suppose to use? I suggest toes, ear lobes or some other unique identifier. Floor cameras can be installed to read our toe prints.

Biometric verifications, the EU say, shall look at four flat fingers from either the right or left hands. Now if you haven’t got four on each hand can you use two from each? Can you use two from each anyway? Jeremy, a specialist data protection and privacy lawyer I imagine, is of the view that, because of the wording, you can use fingers from both hands if you wish. Try telling that to an immigration officer and see where you get.

But no, further on the EU says you must start with the right hand and fingers should be from the same hand!

But member states may decide to use two fingerprints instead of four. And I though the EU was to harmonise things not give options. Shouldn’t all states do the same? Silly me. They don’t do it with belts or shoes so why should they adopt the same procedure for fingerprints?

Ever thorough, the EU then says that missing or bandaged fingers shall always be identified as specified in some documents that I won’t bore you with. How can you identify a missing finger? That it’s just not there? Can I bandage all my fingers and protect my privacy and still get entry? And what happens if you have five fingers like Queen Anne Boleyn? See the document isn’t so thorough after all. They haven’t considered that!

Body Scanners to be introduced at US Airports

adrian — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 05:41:00 +0000

Last week, the New York Times said that the familiar walk through metal scanners that are seen at airports anywhere in the world will be replaced in the US. What will succeed it will be body imaging devices which amount to a virtual strip search. This has been tested for some time and it is reported that these tests having been successful,the TSA (Transportation Security Administration)wanted them to become standard at all US airports.
Critics claim that the images amount to an invasion of privacy as it provides detailed naked images. Supporters say that the images are anonymised and will not be stored after screeing is completed. Some members of the European Parliament claim that such equipment violates our data protection legislation and the fundamental rights of people.
So is this a genuine security device that will help stop potential terrorist outrages and smuggling or will this be be, as some claim, a use of technology that won’t really add to the existing security measures.
You have to make that decision but it does look, at least in the US, that this is what the future will be.