Aircrew have long claimed that they should be exempt from routine screening. After all, they argue, what’s the point given that they have ultimate control over the aircraft? Furthermore, one would like to think that the privilege of being so-trusted is not only an indication that they have completed the necessary training, but also as a result of having been subjected to intense scrutiny and undergone the type of background checks that would, were they simply a member of the general public, guarantee that they would make it to the ‘trusted’ list.

And, it’s not only aircrew, it’s those who work at airports who will have had to demonstrate their integrity before being issued with ID that would enable them to access sterile zones at airports or, potentially, even onto the flight deck of aircraft.

Beyond that rather limited list of individuals who we can justifiably trust, there are those people we all know because they are household names and whose every action and indiscretion is the subject of media attention. After all, can you imagine Pierce Brosnan or Demi Moore hijacking a flight? And, if Tobey Maguire were on board, he’d more likely don his Spiderman costume in order to repel an attacker than be the cause of an international terrorist act himself!

Or so it would seem…

True, Maria Sharapova is not likely to be the next al-Qaeda activist and Didier Drogba is not going to hold people hostage just because Ivory Coast lost to Zambia in the final of the Africa Cup of Nations, but celebrities, as we have seen on countless occasions, have often been the cause of in-flight disturbances, some of which have been quite serious. On 31st March 2012, Gavin Henson (apologies to those of you in America who are not familiar with the name; he is a Welsh rugby – real man’s oval ball game – star and media celebrity) was so intoxicated on a flight from Glasgow to Cardiff that he ended up being sacked by his club, the Cardiff Blues, and banned from flying on Flybe for six months. So, we may be able to trust that the Hensons of this world are not members of terrorist organisations, but we cannot say that they will not be a threat to the flight.

Likewise with aircrew. On 11th February 2012 a TAM flight 8047 had just departed Montevideo, Uruguay, for Sao Paulo when the flight deck crew were attacked by an airline employee, resulting in the temporary loss of control of the aircraft. The pilot called for assistance as the aircraft went into a dive. The result could have been tragic were it not for the heroic efforts of the pilots and flight attendants who managed to regain control of the aircraft and effectively restrain the assailant. The aircraft landed safely in Porto Alegre.

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Liquid explosives have been used for military and commercial applications since the late 19th century. The first powerful liquid explosive – Nitroglycerin or NG – was discovered in 1847 and commercialised by the 1860s with solid additives to reduce its inherent high sensitivity to friction and shock. NG has since been used as an active ingredient in the manufacture of explosives, mostly dynamite, and as such employed in the construction, demolition, and mining industries, as well as by the military. Since the discovery of NG, many other types of liquid explosives have been developed and regularly used for similar applications.

Existing in a variety of colours and densities, most liquid explosives perform as well as other regular high explosives (when comparing detonation speed and brisance). However, the commercial and military use of liquid explosives is limited due to their high volatility and toxicity which require unique safety precautions for storage and usage.

Some of the safety concerns have been mitigated by mixing liquid explosives with various solid components which may also enhance their explosive properties (energetic solid substances). Binary liquid explosives (or mixtures) were developed to further enhance the safe handling of liquid explosives since the individual components are safe to handle until mixed, making them even more suited for use by the modern-day terrorist.

Here, in alphabetical order, are just a few of the materials that challenge the aviation security system today…

Typical 3-1-1 compliant package of liquids

Astrolite

Astrolite is the trade name of a family of liquid explosives, invented by the chemist Gerald Hurst in the 1960s while he was employed with the Atlas Powder Company. The Astrolite family is part of the binary liquid explosives, which is the mixture of two non-explosive compounds that rapidly interact to then become liquid explosive. Astrolite liquid explosives are composed of Ammonium Nitrate oxidiser and Hydrazine rocket fuel. They are still used in commercial and civil blasting applications, but have mostly been superseded by cheaper and safer compounds, largely due to the expense and exceptionally poisonous nature of the hydrazine component.

The most common type, Astrolite G, is a mixture of Ammonium Nitrate and Hydrazine at a ratio of 2:1, forming a clear, viscous liquid approximately the consistency of motor oil (density of 1.36 gr/cm³). It is a relatively stable explosive compound, requiring a blasting cap to detonate. Astrolite A is less common and is synthesised by the addition of finely powdered Aluminium to the Astrolite G mixture. Though it has a lower detonation velocity than Astrolite G, the addition of the Aluminium increases its overall explosive effectiveness.

The Astrolite family is remarkably persistent for a liquid explosive due to its low volatility and can be dispersed in an area, be absorbed by the soil, and still retain its full explosive characteristics for a period of approximately four days.

The technology of current airport screening systems was developed in the 1970s and it is extensively used across the world today.  Although we have seen the advent of improved instrumentation, primarily based on X-ray technology, the screening process is still erroneous.  A false judgement of a possibly hazardous and dangerous substance can be due to an incorrect instrument reading (Type I error) or by accepting to transport a person or baggage when they should have been subject to secondary scans (Type II error).

Type I and Type II errors have to be reduced to improve screening precision at airports.

To improve the detection of liquid explosives, for example, new X-ray scanners utilising large numbers of detectors have recently been developed.  These systems enable a reduction in Type I errors through an improvement in object classification by comparing screen data to a database of substances. Importantly, if a substance has not been classified (which means listed in the database) the system fails.  To combat Type II errors, a process that removes human judgement needs to be incorporated as part of airport security.  Human judgement involves the examination of X-ray images, resolution of metal detector alarms, performing body scans with a metal detection wand, physically searching baggage, and maintaining order in an otherwise hectic environment.  Therefore, it is not hard to imagine that Type II errors are frequent in airport screening.

A robust solution is one that is capable of screening for various substances.

For decades the National Research Council has studied airline passenger security and maintains that the ideal detection system in airports is one that is capable of identifying both metallic and non-metallic objects of hazardous or dangerous nature with a low level of Type I errors.  Recently, a large amount of emphasis has been placed on monitoring liquids, as they may be used in the manufacture of liquid explosives.  The screening information provided to instrument operators should be delivered rapidly, which is sufficiently informative to be able to make an accurate human judgement.  It is unclear whether the well-established X-ray technology, or recent fluorescence developments for airport screening, can fill the gap.

Magnetic resonance (MR) technology has also been around since the 1970s, and it is routinely used in hospitals to non-invasively scan patients in detail.  Scans are primarily used for diagnosis, which is not dissimilar in nature to diagnosing objects, such as determining the contents of baggage.  This is because an MR image of a patient can, for example, reveal locations of tumours, which are substances elucidating a different chemical structure to the rest of the body.  Hence, the screening process is established, but its application outside medical imaging has been limited.

The MR technique of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy probes the bulk chemical environment of an object, from which the object make-up can be deduced.  Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS), on the other hand, can localise the chemical environment and deduce its constituents.  Hence, MR techniques are capable of resolving information about a sample in 3D with great accuracy.  These abilities provide great advantages over 2D X-ray scanners.  So, why is it that we do not have MR based screening devices in airports? And, might they be the future?

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What is a SWAT Team?

A Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit is a specially trained law enforcement team which responds to critical events, such as situations which may involve hostages. These teams also go by a number of alternate names but, regardless of their official name, they are known colloquially as SWAT. Generally, this term is officially used only within the United States, with special response units from other countries having their own colourful acronyms.

The origin of SWAT teams can be found in Los Angeles in the 1960s, when the Police Department recognised a growing need for an elite, highly-trained response team which could handle emergency situations. The first SWAT team was established there in 1967, and the concept quickly spread across the US to other Police Departments. Today, most major US Police Departments have SWAT capability, as do other law enforcements agencies. As well as police SWAT teams, there are military units that carry out similar functions, for example the Navy Seals in the US, and Special Forces units around the world, such as the UK’s Special Air Service and Israel’s Sayeret Matkal. Such units are ready to travel internationally for assignments where required, with the authority from the country where they are to carry out an operation….and sometimes, as in the case of the famous Entebbe raid, even without it!

Hijackings of Aircraft, Resulting in SWAT Team Deployment

The following are some of the more notable examples of SWAT team involvement in the resolution of aircraft hijackings:

Sabena Flight 571:  Vienna to Tel Aviv

Hijacked by four members of Black September on 8th May 1972. On 9th May a team of 16 Sayeret Matkal commandos, led by Ehud Barak and including Benjamin Netanyahu, both to become future Israeli Prime Ministers, approached the plane disguised as airplane technicians and convinced the hijackers that the aircraft needed repair. The commandos stormed the aircraft and took control in ten minutes, killing both male hijackers and capturing the two female terrorists. All the passengers were rescued. Three of the passengers were wounded with one female passenger eventually dying from her wounds. Netanyahu was also wounded during the rescue.

Air France Flight 139: Athens to Paris (originating in Tel Aviv)

Hijacked by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the German Revolutionary Cells on 27th June 1976 and diverted, via Libya, to Entebbe, Uganda. Many Israeli and Jewish passengers were aboard the flight. The hostages were held in Entebbe airport. On 4th July, over 100 Israeli commandos took part in Operation Thunderbolt.  All the hijackers, four hostages (including one passenger killed later in retaliation for the Israeli assault), 45 Ugandan soldiers (who resisted) and the leader of the assault element of the team, Jonathan Netanyahu, older brother of future Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, were killed. 102 hostages were rescued.  The assault had taken a week of planning and lasted 90 minutes.

Lufthansa Flight 181:  Palma de Mallorca to Frankfurt

Hijacked by four members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine on 13th October 1977.  On 17th October, having stopped at various other airports, including Aden where the Captain was executed, the plane landed in Mogadishu, Somalia.

German GSG 9 commandoes, supported by colleagues from the British SAS, who had flown into Somalia, started their assault at 0200 hours on 18th October. They approached from the rear of the aircraft in its blind spot in six teams using black-painted aluminium ladders to gain access through the escape hatches under the fuselage and through the doors over the wings. Several minutes before the rescue, Somali commandos, who had established a perimeter around the plane, lit a fire 200 feet in front of it, which acted as a diversion, resulting in two of the three hijackers rushing to the cockpit, isolating them from the hostages in the cabin. At 0207, the GSG 9 commandos silently climbed up the blackened aluminium ladders and opened the emergency doors and stormed the aircraft. Shouting in German for the hostages to hit the floor, the commandos shot and killed two of the terrorists and wounded two more, one of whom died hours later. Four hostages and one commando received minor injuries.

Garuda Indonesia Flight 206: Palembang to Medan

Hijacked by a group called Komando Jihad on 28th March 1981. The hijackers ordered the pilot to fly them to Colombo, Sri Lanka. The plane landed in Penang, Malaysia, to refuel, then flew to Don Muang airport in Thailand. Royal Thai Air Force commandos and Indonesia’s Kopassus commandos stormed the plane. The Kopassus commandos had trained for only three days with new weapons. One of the Kopassus commandos was shot, probably by his comrades, as was the pilot. The rest of the hostages were released unharmed. Two of the hijackers surrendered to the Thai commandos, but were killed by the Kopassus commandos on the plane taking them back to Indonesia.

Egyptair Flight 648:  Athens to Cairo

Hijacked by the Abu Nidal Organisation on 23rd November 1985 and flown to Malta. On 25th November, after the hijackers had started executing passengers one by one, Egyptian commandos from the country’s Task Force 777 elite unit stormed the aircraft. As explosives were detonated in an attempt to blow a hole on the top of the airframe, the explosion ripped through the cabin, killing 20 passengers. Using the same hole, commandos gained entry to the plane but in the confusion opened fire indiscriminately and killed and injured more passengers. In the ensuing chaos, passengers that managed to flee the plane were shot by snipers in positions around the airport who mistook them for terrorists attempting to escape. The total number of passengers killed was 58, out of a total of 90.

Singapore Airlines Flight 117: Kuala Lumpur to Singapore

Hijacked on 26th March 1991 by four Pakistanis claiming to be from the Pakistan People’s Party. The plane landed at Singapore Changi Airport, where the hijackers threatened to kill the hostages if their demands were not met.  On 27th March, Singapore Armed Forces Commando Formation stormed the plane in a 30-second sweep, killing all four hijackers.

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I’m sure you can recall at least one occasion when you had to sit through a security training programme that, although regulatory-compliant, had no significant impact on your working life. Maybe you were on the receiving end of a technical data dump. Or perhaps you were the victim of a ‘Death by PowerPoint’ presentation. Even if the content was actually relevant, have you ever felt lectured at by a somewhat ego-driven or ‘broadcast-style’ presenter? On the other hand, I’m sure you have also experienced a few high quality presentations or workshops delivered by engaging, impactful trainers who seemed to be able to communicate concise, compelling, useful ideas and skills with ease. Katharine Ng explores what it is  that sets apart effective training from the mediocre training experiences so many of us have endured and asks what is the key to creating and delivering high impact security training programmes?

Training theory tells us that the purpose of training is to help participants develop the knowledge, skills, and attitude required to do a better job. However, actually achieving impact in each of these three dimensions of training is easier said than done. In some ways, I believe, it is both an art and a science. Mastering the ‘art’ of training requires developing high ‘E.Q.’ or soft skills. These include ‘thinking on your feet’, highly-tuned empathy, and an intuitive sense of when to drive towards a learning objective vs. when to facilitate interaction and sharing. Of course, it then requires many hundreds of hours of experience. Mastering the ‘science’ of training revolves around content, delivery, and context. It requires the effective use of best-practice principles, frameworks, and skills to analyse training needs, and create superior training content. Then we must acquire advanced delivery skills for presenting and facilitating effectively. Lastly, we need to know how to create and manage a powerful and productive adult-learning context throughout the workshop.

Pyramid Principle and the Fishbone Structure

Starting with training content, two of the most effective methods for structuring a training topic are the ‘pyramid principle’ and the ‘fishbone structure’. The pyramid principle, (popularised by a book of the same name by Barbara Minto) suggests that, rather than starting a presentation or topic with background and detail, and deductively working towards a logical conclusion or recommendation, we should come at it from the ‘top down’. That is, we should start with the conclusion, followed by our key supporting arguments. (This is, effectively, an ‘executive summary’ of the topic). Next, we expand on each of the key arguments or ideas in turn, and skip all extraneous detail and background. Lastly, we finish the topic with a recap of the opening ‘executive summary’, leaving any detail and background for the Q&A session or to be delivered as handout materials. Using the pyramid principle’s top-down approach has several major benefits. It ensures that our topic hooks and holds the attention of participants. It makes the content seem more relevant, persuasive, and easier to remember. And, lastly, if we have to (time constraints etc.), it allows us to cut our topic short and still ensure that the most important ideas (the ‘executive summary’) have been communicated.

The ‘fishbone structure’ is an excellent way to deal with a potentially ‘boring topic’. Actually, I believe that there is no such thing as a boring topic, only boring treatment of a topic. Creative trainers have the ability to make any subject come to life. For example, if you had to quickly understand a recent aircraft security issue or incident, would you rather read an official report cover-to-cover, or watch an episode of National Geographic Air Crash Investigation? The next time you design a technical training module, try to think like a documentary producer and see if you can come up with a story line for the topic using a fishbone diagram. In fact, many developers of computer-based training programmes, now commonplace in the aviation security world, apply such principles. Using this technique, the head of the fish represents the key message or conclusion. The main backbone of the fish skeleton represents the timeline of the main story or case study. This timeline can represent a real case study or an imaginary one. The individual ribs branching off from the backbone represent the content topics, scenarios, technical features, functions, etc. The fishtail reminds us to finish by re-stating the key message or conclusion. Does it take extra time and effort to create content in this way? Yes, very often it does. But it is worth it if the goal is to deliver training that is relevant, memorable, and useful in the real world.

Delivery Skills

Now that we have a couple of tools for planning and structuring our training content, what about our delivery skills? The world’s best trainers, presenters and public speakers have all learned a few simple techniques that allow them to captivate their audiences. Current best practice teaches us to deliver in a natural or ‘conversational’ style. In effect, this means talking at a naturally fast rate of words while pausing between ideas to allow participants to have ‘thinking time’ and a chance of remembering what has been said. Unfortunately, too many trainers drone on (often talking slowly, without pausing, in a darkened room, reading from their slides) and then wonder why so many people struggle to pay attention or remember anything. You may well have attended a session with an instructor presenting slides of clauses from Annex 17 and simply reading the text?

Effective trainers understand their role in engaging, educating, and empowering their participants. They are not just captivating presenters; they are also masters at the art of facilitation. If presenting can be thought of as taking information and ‘pouring it into’ our participants, then facilitation is ‘drawing out’ information, experiences, and wisdom from them. The main art of facilitation is the trainer’s ability to skilfully lead diverging and converging class discussions using a variety of questioning techniques. Facilitation skills work especially well when leading case study discussions and when de-briefing exercises, role-plays, and simulations (e.g. managing disruptive passenger scenarios or hijack exercise de-briefings). This learner-centred process enables conclusions to be drawn out and learning to occur through a natural experiential learning cycle.

Great content and training delivery skills are crucial, but let’s not underestimate the power of setting the right context for a training workshop. The ‘context set’ should include items like the agenda, ground rules, trainer and participant introductions, and gathering participant expectations. However, context is also everything else that we do to create a training environment that is highly conducive to learning. As air crew often say, “Briefing sets the tone for the entire flight”. The same goes for setting an appropriate tone or atmosphere for the entire course.

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What is the cyber threat? How well protected am I from it? Simple as these questions sound, many organisations are struggling to provide an equally simple answer. The cyber threat is constantly evolving, difficult to attribute and can happen in a matter of milliseconds and this adds further complexity to the task.

This article will focus on the first of those two questions, specifically: Are there groups that may wish to disrupt your business? Does your business require access to the internet either as a communication route or as a way of selling services? Are any of your industrial control systems accessible through your information communication technology? Does your organisation hold information that is of value to others?

These questions are explored in more detail below. The examples used are based on what has already happened rather than what could happen. Whilst there is a possibility of terrorists attacking the aviation industry through a cyber attack, there are other threats that are far more likely and are already impacting on organisations’ effectiveness, efficiency and profit and we will focus on these.

Are there groups who may wish to disrupt your business?

A protest outside the gates or perimeter of an organisation can attract media coverage. However, online activists, (or hacktivists as they are often described), have been discovering the power and impact of revealing sensitive organisational data. A recent Verizon report  highlighted the impact of such groups. Hactivists were only responsible for 3% of the attacks analysed, compared with organised criminal groups who were responsible for 83% of attacks. However, hactivists were responsible for more than 58% of the records taken, which equates to over 100 million records.

As I write this article a company has experienced the impact on share price and customer loyalty that the loss of sensitive client data can have. In addition to unwelcomed publicity, losing data can result in fines from regulators. There is also a personal impact on your customer. Despite advice to the contrary, individuals tend to use the same password across a range of sites. The loss of password data therefore can require individuals to change details across a range of sites and accounts. You may be forgiven for one breach, but experience a second and your customer is likely to change supplier.

The aviation industry involves multiple partners and one organisation can find itself impacted by the activities of another. For example, airport operators may find themselves targeted because of the activities of an airline operating from their airfield. Whilst organisations may feel such protests or attacks come from nowhere with no advanced warning; the reality is that such attacks are often discussed in open forums prior to the incident. Monitoring such discussions provides Information Security teams with the ability to prepare a response, for example by protecting staff from a barrage of e-mails by updating e-mail filters.

The industry has already seen an example of a joint cyber and physical protest. The “Anonymous” group caused significant disruption of ground-based transportation systems, including San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), in August 2011.  This attack took place both online and with physical protests, a combination which resulted in BART closing four stations and switching off mobile telephony services in stations and tunnels.

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Known as human trafficking or trafficking in persons, modern day slavery occurs in arguably every country, in both urban and rural areas, in homes and in businesses, in wealthy and poor neighbourhoods and in industries as diverse as agriculture and tourism.  In other words, it is not just someone else’s problem. The growing global phenomenon does not just happen in other places; it happens in our cities, in our very own communities.  It happens behind closed doors, in businesses we frequent, in train stations we pass through and on the planes we fly in; it happens virtually everywhere.

What is Human Trafficking and Why is it so Difficult to Combat?

So first, what is human trafficking?  The current internationally accepted definition of human trafficking or trafficking in persons can seem complicated, but the detail is important to ensure the various facets of the problem are recognised so that people not only understand what it entails, but also so that effective laws can be established and enforced.  Essentially, human trafficking or trafficking in persons refers to the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, through the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, or of deception for the purpose of exploitation.  Exploitation can be broadly understood to include sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.[2] In regard to children, it is not necessary for a threatening or coercive element to be involved for a child to be considered a victim of trafficking because a child, or person under the age of 18, cannot legally consent independently to begin with.

Next, why is human trafficking so difficult to combat?  Often, human trafficking occurs in the dark corners and cracks of our societies or behind private doors, and added to this, the more visible aspects of human trafficking are often not entirely understood or identified to begin with. In recent years, increased international attention and understanding of the problem has prompted a range of research and varied responses from governments, international agencies, law enforcement agencies, civil society actors and corporate entities.  It is through this fledgling research, increased international coordination and growing advocacy movement that we are starting to get a better picture of the scope of the problem and sadly, what we are finding is terrifying. The statistics that are available, as limited as they are, show a world picture where increased globalisation, coupled with economic and social crises, international conflict and changes or failures of governments have created climates where human trafficking is in high demand, is extremely profitable and is considerably less risky in regards to detection and punishment than in comparison to trafficking in drugs or illicit arms.  It is estimated that there are, “12.3 million adults and children in forced labour, bonded labour, and forced prostitution around the world; 56 percent of these victims are women and girls.”[3] But, as our understanding of the issue has grown so too has our ability to respond to it.

As understandings of the dynamics of human trafficking have evolved and laws have been established to combat the growing epidemic, methods to combat the problem have also begun to evolve.  A large part of this evolution has been through increased research, education, awareness raising and training.  Governments, international agencies and various civil society actors have been trying to research and document trafficking routes, patterns and emerging countries of origin, transit and destination. Frustratingly though, their research is often hampered by differing laws, ways countries compile data, national priorities and institutional capabilities, amongst other issues.  The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has attempted in recent years to compile global statistics and document patterns of human trafficking, and while the massive amounts of data have yielded a range of information, for most this information has been quite unsatisfying because we still lack significant evidence-based statistics about patterns, dynamics and scope.  That said, this research has created a foundation of sorts for us to use and to further develop.  For instance in regards to global patterns, according to UNODC, “Most trafficking is national or regional, carried out by people whose nationality is the same as their victim.  There are also notable cases of long-distance trafficking.  Europe is the destination for victims from the widest range of origins, while victims from Asia are trafficked to the widest range of destinations.  The Americas are prominent both as the origin and destination of victims in the human trade.”[4]  These insights are extremely valuable and are helping officials to design appropriate interventions to combat the scourge.

Additionally, there are trafficking routes and emerging source, transit and destination countries for different types of trafficking, such as trafficking for sexual exploitation or for forced labour.  Recent data suggests that following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the lessening of border restrictions throughout Europe, Europe saw a significant increase in human trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation.[5]  This is in comparison to regions such as Asia which have arguably seen an increase in human trafficking for sexual exploitation but also significantly for forced labour. In Asia, “in the majority of cases the victims are tricked into travelling voluntarily on airlines…the traffickers promise them non-existent jobs in the foreign countries, [and] secure the tickets, passports and the travel documents for the journey” [6], according to the International Labour Organisation.

Aviation Industry’s Efforts in Combating Trafficking The research is complicated and the data is vague but it does yield insights into this very complex phenomenon.  The next questions then are how and where do we target efforts to combat trafficking?  As mentioned, recent efforts have focused on research, education, awareness raising and training.  Most often, this has taken place in the law enforcement arena with police and other law enforcement officials being trained to view prostitution and organised crime through a human trafficking lens, being trained to spot victims and traffickers and being trained in how to interact with potential victims. But this is not enough and we know it.  Civil society actors and others have also been working with international agencies and law enforcement to devise additional methods to combat trafficking by focusing on both the supply and demand ends of the issue.

Recognising that the airline industry has been and is being used to facilitate human trafficking, in recent years a range of governmental, nongovernmental and corporate actors, including many airlines themselves, have started to work together to combat the problem.

The United Kingdom, in its recent strategy on human trafficking, details the purpose of its Risk and Liaison Overseas Network (RALON) noting that:

RALON officers work with airlines and local border control authorities to ensure passengers hold the right travel documents before they travel to the UK. In 2010 they prevented over 67,000 people with incorrect, counterfeit or fraudulently obtained travel documents from travelling to the UK. RALON officers have trained carriers on routes that are commonly used by traffickers to enable them to identify traffickers and their victims.[7]

The strategy also highlights an example where: …MORE ONLINE

On 7^th February 2012 John Pistole, the Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, made a statement to the United States House of Representatives’ Committee on Homeland Security (Subcommittee on Transportation Security). In it he said that the “TSA employs risk-based, intelligence-driven operations to prevent terrorist attacks” and that its goal was to “stay ahead of evolving terrorist threats while protecting passengers’ privacy and facilitating the secure and efficient flow of legitimate commerce”.

It may be that the powers-that-be genuinely believe these claims and aspirations are true and being achieved. After all, as Pistole continues, his employees have “safely screened more than 5 billion passengers since TSA was created”, and over the past decade “have confiscated approximately 50 million prohibited items, and last year alone prevented more than 1,200 guns from being brought onto passenger aircraft.”

Sadly, I do not agree. I do not believe that we are deploying a risk-based aviation security system and we are, as a global community, certainly not staying ahead of evolving threats. Ask screeners about the training they have had in the identification of chemical or biological weapons; or, perhaps don’t as the answer is somewhat disturbing. As to the claims of confiscating 50 million prohibited items in the United States, how many of them were ever going to be used in an attack against aviation? And the very fact that, amazingly, in excess of 1,200 guns were identified at US checkpoints in 2011, usually in the baggage of Americans that ‘forgot’ that’s where they kept their firearm, means that we are not doing a particularly good job at getting the general public to think security before they set out on their journeys. I am delighted that the firearms were detected, but let’s face it, if X-ray operators can’t find a firearm, what hope do they have of finding the type of weapon a hijacker might actually use in 2012?

It is also lamentable that, when summarising TSA ‘finds’, Pistole failed to report how many passengers had been denied boarding because of their intoxicated state or unusual behaviour, or how many people were identified carrying falsified travel documents. Such figures could provide an inkling as to how the agency had acted on the ground to avoid problems in the air. Stopping an inebriated passenger, to me at least, is far better than confiscating a 250ml bottle of Ambre Solaire sun tan lotion.

The TSA’s own website extols its ‘Top 10 Good Catches of 2011’. The list includes snakes, turtles and birds found in Miami, inert landmines found in Salt Lake City, a stun gun disguised as a smart phone in Los Angeles and small chunks of C4 found in checked baggage in Yuma. Again, bravo for the finds, but citing these as the ‘Top 10’ opens the TSA to ridicule. One only has to read some of the comments posted on the site to sense that confidence in the TSA’s performance is not high. The number of high profile errors of judgement – failing to confiscate marijuana and leaving the passenger a note saying “C’mon son” instead; searching colostomy bags; confiscating cupcakes; writing a note to a woman who was carrying a vibrator in her luggage telling her to “Get your freak on, girl”; mistaking an insulin pump for a possible IED; finding potential pipe bombs and then not summoning the police or bomb squad – does little to inspire confidence in the agency to safeguard passengers from real terrorist attacks. Results of covert tests of the screening system were released in 2006 and indicated a potential 70% failure rate; whilst the situation has almost certainly improved since then, the absence of evidence to support that assumption is in itself disturbing.

As always, it’s easy to criticise. Pistole is in an unenviable position of having to make statements to reassure government and the general public. Thankfully, due to the very limited number of actual terrorist attacks, hard evidence that demonstrates the agency’s effectiveness is in short supply. Furthermore, it is easier to take pot shots at the TSA than at its counterparts elsewhere around the globe because of the excessive media scrutiny it has to contend with and the sheer size of the security operation.

But, if you put your head above the parapet you have to take the flak. Complacency is not an option. Whilst we can try and pretend that have the right calibre people on the front line, and make proclamations about ‘staying ahead of the threat’ and ‘being risk-based’, most readers would, I believe, agree that this will only be achieved through a broad acceptance of the need to differentiate between passengers, paying screeners a wage that unequivocally demonstrates their value to a nation’s security (and thereby attracting better candidates), training personnel in a far broader curriculum that enables them to be comprehend both the multi-cultural environment in which they operate and the future threats they may encounter, and ensuring that they work in a highly disciplined, zero tolerance, regime where failure is not an option. Confiscating 50 million prohibited items is nothing to be proud of; preventing the next terrorist attack is….MORE ONLINE

The technologies that are used to screen passengers and their belongings continue to mature. However, the design of the security screening checkpoint often remains an afterthought.  The criticality of checkpoint design is based on a fundamental difference between the lifespan of assets used for security screening and the escalation of new threat sources.  Equipment deployed immediately post-9/11, for example, is just now reaching the end of its lifecycle.  In contrast, terminal buildings that were constructed over the past decade will need to last at least another two to three decades.  The longevity of airport terminal buildings means that their design direction must be flexible in accommodating two or three generations of aviation security screening equipment and processes.  Without a forward-thinking view on design, airports often face additional costs to retrofit so-called “legacy” facilities, or worst yet, suffer decay in level of service for its passengers.

The past year has seen a number of visions of the future of design, process and technologies.  From the early initiatives in “risk-based screening” to the differentiation of known/normal/enhanced traveller processes from IATA’s Checkpoint of the Future concept, governments, airports and airlines are accelerating their thought process to map out what travellers will experience in 2020, 2030, 2040 and beyond.  While no one can be certain of how the threat environment and future security needs will evolve, there are several important trends that are worth incorporating in the design of security screening checkpoints.

Designing in 3 or 4 Dimensions

Airport terminal designers typically space out facilities in two dimensions: width and depth.  The conventional methodology airport planners use is to examine peak hour requirements based on forecast activity.

For purposes of illustration, some examples of factors used in a typical planning exercise for checkpoints include:

• Providing space for every two lanes of equipment including divestiture and repack tables (e.g., 7.6 metres by 15 metres)
• Determining number of lanes needed by comparing throughput per lane (e.g., 100-300 passengers per hour, depending on the jurisdiction)
• Calculating number of passengers expected to queue for security screening, multiplied by 1 square metre per passenger (e.g. 400 passengers needing 400 square metres of space)

However, this conventional approach is challenged with constraints in the third (height) and fourth (time) dimensions.

Removing Height Issues

Since the 1970s, walk-through magnetometers have not changed in height.  At 2.3 metres, the archway-like device can be affected by surrounding metallic objects.  For example, any structure with a steel beam overhead a magnetometer could impact performance of the unit and associated calibration.  Nonetheless, the walk-through metal detector often dictates the height of the screening area.  For a number of terminal buildings constructed in the 1970s-1990s, limited ceiling height has proven to be a challenge to new equipment deployed today.

Many countries have accelerated the deployment of full-body scanners at checkpoints since the failed December 2009 plot against a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Detroit.  These units can be as tall as 2.6 metres – a constraint on some lower-ceiling checkpoints.  More importantly, the use of closed-circuit television cameras at checkpoints benefits from higher ceilings in order to have un-obscured views of individuals being screened.

Newer airport terminals (e.g., Barcelona, Beijing Terminal 3, Toronto Terminal 1) have adopted ceiling heights well in excess of six metres.   While these can accommodate new equipment, the effectiveness of screening can also be impacted by a “sky’s the limit” approach to ceiling heights.  Munich, for example, has a checkpoint with a 40-metre ceiling height and introduced a seven metre canopy to prevent glare from sunlight.  There are also additional benefits with a lower ceiling height from those offered by vast modern terminal building, such as reducing excess noise as well as improving the performance of closed circuit television cameras.

Checkpoint designers will need to ensure they pay attention to vertical design of facilities to make sure that equipment and sensor technologies can be accommodated…MORE ONLINE

Whether it’s a businessperson travelling to Davos, or a family travelling to Disneyland, when a person steps onto an aeroplane, their concerns are safety, efficiency, and privacy. They don’t want to be the victims of a terrorist attack; they want to know that appropriate safeguards have been put in place to protect them.

No one wants to lose the opportunities air travel affords, making it incumbent on both airlines and governments to ensure air travel remains pleasant and affordable. No air passenger wishes to sacrifice their privacy or dignity – a sense of invasiveness will compromise the overall travel experience and might prevent people from flying. Passengers don’t want to worry about getting cancer from unnecessary scanning machines. They don’t want to feel naked and exposed to the strangers that screen them at the checkpoint. But, equally, they don’t want to be on the evening news, the latest innocent bystanders caught in a global crossfire. Despite the media brouhaha, governments and airport operators are actually finding that ‘advanced imaging technology’, to use TSA parlance, (‘full body scanners’ as far as the general public are concerned) are a way to alleviate these concerns and make air travel as pleasurable and stress free as possible.

The full-body scanners predominantly used today are backscatter machines, which produce a two-dimensional image, and millimetre wave machines, which produce a three-dimensional image. The backscatter machines use ionising radiation. Unlike traditional X-rays (used for medical purposes), in which the radiation is transmitted through the object, backscatter X-rays detect the radiation that reflects from an object and uses that to project an image onto a screen. Rapiscan Systems is the most popular manufacturer of these machines, with backscatters in airports in America and Europe.

Douglas McMakin is a staff engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He helped develop the modern millimetre wave scanners currently used in airports. These machines have an advantage over backscatter ones inasmuch as they don’t use ionising radiation at all. Rather than analysing reflected radiation, they simply use the energy given off by the object being scanned.

There are also body scanners on the market that use X-ray transmission imaging.  These normally use a radiation level 100 x more than that used by backscatter scanners, which equates to about 3-5 mSv.  But even this is well within safety limits according to most independent reports. However, X-ray transmission units are not used in passenger screening at the current time, albeit that they do offer the best image quality and, consequently, highest detection capability.

Airports will of course continue to use traditional security methods – hand-held magnetometers, archway metal detectors, X-rays for luggage and shoes, and pat-down checks if something suspicious is found or an alarms cannot be otherwise resolved. But of all the new security technology being developed all over the world, full-body scanners have proven to be the most reliable in detecting explosives, plastics, ceramics and other non-metallic items concealed on, or inside, a person.

For a time, explosive trace-detection portal machines, popularly known as “air puffer machines” were seen as an option for airport security. They don’t scan people at all; instead a jet of air aimed at a passenger does the work. In 2006, Discover Magazine called it a “No-Touch Pat-Down.” They described the sensation as, “high-pressure bursts of air blast[ing] up and down the body, tousling hair, ruffling collars, and evincing giggles.” It sounds gentler than the futuristic Star Trek-style telephone booth machines that use radiation and produce images of a passenger’s body. Unfortunately, they were shown to be impractical for airports, except for secondary screening. They can only detect explosive residue, not weapons or electronic parts, and they need constant maintenance, which has proven to be too costly and time-consuming. Humidity, air currents, and the sort of ordinary particulate matter in the atmosphere interfere with the censors, requiring constant cleaning. According to the United States Congress’ Government Accountability Office, the TSA originally ordered 434 puffer machines to use in United States airports, but due to problems with the machines’ ability to detect explosives, and to maintain, only 95 are currently being used at airports and there are no plans to order more.

Whilst millimetre wave imaging may have an advantage over backscatter X-ray in terms of ionising radiation, backscatters allow for a higher level of detection that millimetre wave systems – the increased amount of radiation creates clearer images, and, when used correctly, results in a false alarm rate of less than 10%. According to Peter Kant, Executive Vice President of Rapiscan Systems, “If a passenger has sweat on his clothing or something in his pocket, the machine is less likely to sound the alarm [than with a millimetre wave scanner].”

Most full-body scanners don’t actually display an image of the body. With backscatter machines, the security agent presses a pink button for a female body or a blue one for a man. The person being scanned appears as a cartoon avatar, coloured white, similar in appearance to a sharply-defined chalk drawing. If the radiation sees something that shouldn’t be there, a red mark appears over a part of the body. A red patch over the breast could be a weapon or a mobile phone – the passenger would then be told to remove the contents of his shirt pocket so the security agents could check. The millimetre wave scanners are three-dimensional, but other than that the imaging process is the same: a white avatar, and a yellow box over any suspicious area. The avatar is less detailed than those produced by the backscatter – it’s just a white outline with no discernable features. Here as well, faces and genitalia are not displayed on the monitor.

Rapiscan praises the convenience of the backscatter machine as one of its greatest assets. Passengers simply need to stand in the machine – no need to move around to capture a ...MORE ONLINE